Reprisals
by SSG Michael B Jackson
Summary: Repost This is a BGC/Crow Crossover. It's set around Christmas, 2034, one year after the Knight Sabers are brutally murdered at Raven's Garage. And no, Priss isn't the one to return; you'll see! Mostly canon characters with a few originals.
1. Chapter 1

_Well, I decided to wipe and re-post this is anyone is wondering. This time I'm going to throw it out a chapter at a time and see what the reaction is. Based on how that goes I may do the same with some of my other stories so please take a minute or two to review._

**_Disclaimer: I own nothing that has anything to do with either The Crow or BGC; I'm dabling in both worlds purely for amusement's sake so I hope no one get it in mind to sue me or anything silly._**

_**REPRISALS:**_

_**A Tale of Dark Justice in the World of Bubblegum Crisis**_

_By SSG Michael B. Jackson_

_**People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it, and the soul can't rest. Then, sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.**_

Blood, misery and pain. Those were her last memories and the first things to register upon her suddenly re-kindled awareness.

She screamed in white-hot agony as her lungs were seared by the first gasping breath she'd taken in almost a year, and the air tasted foul and flat on her tongue. Her eyes snapped open to pitch blackness, and panic clutched her as her spasmodically outstretched hands met solid resistance mere inches from her body.

Howling and moaning in abject animal terror, she pushed upward with all her might, and, astonishingly, felt something shift. Almost mindlessly, she continued to push and claw and tear, savaging her hands and nails in the process, but making progress. First there was the dry crackling of splintering wood, then the shifting of a heavy concrete slab, and finally a shower of earth.

Frantically, she dug her way upward, scraping, tearing and pulling inch by agonizing inch, until, finally, she emerged into sweet, open air. Exhausted, she dragged herself from the stinking, muddy hole and lay prostrate on the earth, eyes clenched shut, gasping in lungfuls of clean, fresh air.

Eventually, she opened her eyes again, and looked down at her hands, dreading what she'd find. They were every bit as bad as she'd feared.

Nails, skin and muscle had been stripped away in her frantic efforts to free herself, and she found herself staring at white nubs of bone at the tips, stained with blood and earth. Her stomach clenched, and she was sure she was about to be sick, but then, as she watched, the impossible occurred.

Like a time-lapse movie, flesh began to creep up over exposed bone, and then skin crept up over that. Finally, from her restored nail beds, new nails sprouted like buds from a tree in spring, and within seconds her hands were as good as new.

Marveling at this, unable to even begin to fathom what was happening to her, her gaze slowly wandered from her hands to a slab of hard, gray, stone in front of her. Eyes wide with disbelief, she read the inscription there.

'_Nene Romanova, Beloved Daughter, Devoted Public Servant, and Our Angel Heaven-Sent. Taken From Us Too Soon, But Never Forgotten. Born August 31, 2014. Died December 25, 2033.'_

As the sense of the words penetrated her consciousness, she tilted her head back and screamed her pain into the night. As if in answer, there was a flash of movement in the darkling sky, and a great black bird swooped to perch on the headstone in front of her.

Suddenly fascinated, Nene stared at the creature, and it seemed to stare back at her, ruffling it's feathers restlessly as though it were waiting for something. Wordlessly, she extended her arm, and without hesitation the crow hopped to her wrist.

Straightening slowly, Nene stood, the crow still perched on her arm, and turned to look down hill toward the sea of lights that was Mega Tokyo.

Features compressed in thinly controlled rage, she said in a tight whisper, "I don't know where you are, but I know you're down there somewhere. You murdered my friends, you murdered me, and now nothing is going to stop me from making you pay!"

Tirelessly, she ran through the night. Though she sprinted at a breakneck pace, her breathing remained steady and even throughout the journey to the city's edge.

As she ran, she reflected that it might have been nice if the funeral home had bothered to include the boots that went with the full dress ADP uniform she'd been interred in. As it was, small, sharp things occasionally poked and gouged the soles of her feet, but she didn't really care. There were weightier matters on her mind.

Above and in front of her, the crow flew, it's high-flying gaze taking in all below it. And, somewhere in the back of her mind's eye, Nene saw all that it saw. Heard all that it heard. In some ways, she realized at an almost instinctive level, she and it were one.

Once she reached the suburbs, she headed for the nearest maglev station. She knew that, new abilities or no, she needed to get around a lot faster than her feet alone could carry her, and she figured the maglevs were one of the few modes of transit she could take in her present state without attracting too much unwanted attention. For the most part, she was right.

Out in the suburbs in the dead of night, the maglevs were virtually deserted. Even ticket purchases were automated, and though she had no money, credit, or ID, she still had her brain.

"Police emergency, officer needs immediate transportation. Code 1A93-ADP287," she intoned to the ticketing boomer, a new, shiny, overly-mechanistic looking model that she was unfamiliar with. It paused for a second, processing, and then said, "Code accepted. Emergency fund site accessed. Vending ticket. Do you require further assistance, officer?"

She smiled ruefully, and said, "More than you could guess, metal-head."

Confused, the simple-minded boomer said, "Excuse me? Could you please rephrase your answer, officer?"

She sighed, and said, "Never mind. There's nothing else you can help me with."

The boomer, again pausing to process, replied, "Understood. Have a good evening, officer," and then trundled away on it's programmed circuit of the station.

"A good evening," Nene mused as she swiped her ticket through the platform gate's reader. "Somehow, I don't think there are going to be very many of those in my future."

Everything was quiet on the mostly empty train until they reached the city proper. The few other passengers studiously avoided Nene, due no doubt to her disheveled appearance and to the uniform she wore, as well as the great, dark bird that perched on her shoulder. In fact, under other circumstances, she would have found it humorous how her fellow passengers managed to find the seats and corners farthest away from her. How they glanced furtively at her, and immediately looked away as soon as she met their gaze. But just at that moment, Nene had a hard time imagining anything being funny ever again.

The trouble started after the train stopped at a particularly dilapidated station, somewhere near the Kanto region. She hadn't particularly wanted to go in that direction, not yet at least, but the vagaries of the subway system took her there anyway.

A rambunctious, loud, unruly group of young punks, five strong, boarded the train there, and proceeded to make themselves known at once by bullying, cajoling and harassing the legitimate passengers. Obviously, they were drunk, or high, or maybe both, and from where Nene stood at the back of the passenger car, she could see that all of them were armed with various improvised and illegal weapons, mostly of the bladed and blunt variety. Nene sniffed with distaste, but continued to stand impassively. These riff-raff weren't the reason she was there.

Unfortunately, they didn't necessarily see it that way. Eventually, her presence registered on one of the young gangers, finally seeping through his drug-dulled awareness.

"Hey," he said to his fellows, "Take a look at that! It's the fuzz!" And then, laughing, he said, "Look out! I think she's got us surrounded!"

The other gangers laughed at this, and the five of them started toward Nene.

"Whoa! Check out the bird!" One of them exclaimed. "Is that for real, or am I trippin'?"

Another replied, "Yer probably trippin', man, but I see it too. Cool!"

As the five of them advanced and surrounded Nene, she simply stared straight ahead, ignoring them, which didn't sit well with the five young toughs.

"Hey! Cop lady!" One of them said, thrusting his face close to hers. "Yo! I'm talkin' to you! You deaf, or just stupid?"

Tilting her head slightly, her usually warm blue eyes ice cold and piercing the punk with a withering stare, Nene said, "Not half as stupid as you five, I guess. In case you're blind too, let me spell it out for you. Do I look like I'm in the mood to be messed with right now?"

Non-plused for a moment, the punk just stared. And then, as the sense of Nene's words seeped in, an expression that was equal parts disbelief and indignation spread across his face.

"Wha-! Who the hell do you think you are, bitch? You think that shiny little badge is gonna do something for you? Well, I don't see no gun to back it up, little miss Advanced Po-lice!" And, nodding to his friends, he added, "Do you?"

A chorus of mean laughter met his witticism, and, encouraged by this, he continued.

"Fact is, things could get real ugly here. An' that'd be too bad, as fine as you are." Moving even closer, he reached up suddenly to caress her cheek with thumb and forefinger, and said, "Get what I mean?"

Nene's expression went even colder if possible, and, hand darting up to take hold of his wrist in an inverted grip, she said, "Yeah, I get it. And now so do you." With that, she twisted sharply, and was rewarded with a satisfyingly loud snap as his wrist fractured. From there, all hell broke loose.

The injured punk howled in pain, grasping his oddly bent wrist and staggering back. The other punks just stared for a moment, shocked, and then pounced almost as one. Lacking skill, they all made a grab for her, hoping to bear her down by weight and numbers and then work their will on her. But it didn't work out that way at all.

Inside her head, it was as if every fighting technique she'd ever been taught or had seen used, either by her teammates, or in the media, suddenly gelled and crystallized to form an art all her own. Like Neo in 'The Matrix', it was as if she awoke suddenly realizing 'I know Kung-Fu!' But in her case, Kung-Fu was only the tip of the iceberg.

As the punks grabbed for her, she found the world around her slowing down as she sped up. So rapid were her reflexes now, that the gangers seemed almost to move in slow motion, giving her ample time to act.

As the crow launched itself from her shoulder, cawing raucously, she dropped down under their clumsy grasp, tucked and rolled between the legs of one of the punks, and, spinning on her back as she did so, delivered a vicious side-kick to the inside of his knee. Once again there was an audible snap, and the punk collapsed, screaming and wrapping himself around his shattered joint.

But Nene didn't slow down to savor her victory. Rolling to her left, she scissored another of the punks' legs with her own and brought him crashing to the floor. Still moving, she rolled over him, driving in an elbow strike as she passed that plastered his nose across his face.

Rolling off the bleeding, semi-conscious ganger, she moved into a spinning kip-up, and landed lightly on her feet, already squared off with the two remaining punks.

Grinning wickedly, enjoying both her new-found combat prowess and the opportunity to unleash and unload some of the black emotions poisoning her soul on a deserving target, she said in a mocking tone, "Aw, come on, guys! Is that the best you've got? That was pretty pathetic, you know."

One of the remaining gangers, possibly slightly more intelligent than his fellows, started to back away, eyes darting left and right, seeking an avenue of escape like a trapped animal. His companion, however, displayed no such common sense. Instead, with a growl he reached into his jacket and whipped out a poly-ceramic switch-blade, which opened with a snap as he brought it into an on-guard position.

Nene was familiar with such weapons, having had her share of officer survival classes, and knew that the razor sharp ceramic-composite blade was capable of slicing through most types of soft body armor like construction paper. But, seeing as how she wore no armor at all, she didn't think it made much difference. And she was sure that it wouldn't help her adversary in the slightest.

She just stood, still and ready, as he warily approached, and made no move to stop him from attacking. Instead, she gazed at him curiously, as though to say, "Do you _really_ want to do this?" But obviously he did.

With a growl, the young punk slashed at Nene, a move with just enough skill behind it to show that he'd survived a few knife fights. She wasn't impressed.

Sidestepping, she batted his strike aside contemptuously with a slap block and immediately retaliated with a sharp smack to the side of his head, mere insult rather than injury. Fully enraged now, the ganger roared and began to swing and jab wildly, trying to overwhelm her by sheer force. She still wasn't impressed.

Nene blocked, parried and sidestepped each and every strike, occasionally reaching in with harrying slaps and jabs to keep the punk at the peak of rage. Finally, able to bear no more, the young tough bellowed at the top of his lungs and raised the knife over his head two-fisted, bringing it down on Nene with all his might. This proved to be a grievous error on his part.

Sidestepping again, Nene reached simultaneously to take control of the punk's wrist and elbow and redirected the momentum of the overhead stab in an arc that ended in the meaty part of the his own right thigh. With such force behind it, the poly-ceramic blade gouged through the muscle as if it were Jell-O and lodged deep in the bone, narrowly missing the femoral artery.

With a high whistling scream, the punk collapsed, hands still clutched around the knife's hilt, and lay moaning in a slowly growing pool of his own blood. Still smiling thinly, Nene leaned close and in a low voice, hardly more than a whisper, said, "No, don't pull on it, silly. Right now, it's probably the only thing keeping you from bleeding to death. If you pull it out, you'll probably start gushing, and then I doubt you'll last five minutes." Then, cocking her head disdainfully, she added, "You really should have that looked at, you know."

Standing, she turned to face the last uninjured ganger who, by now, had backed to the furthest corner of the train. Advancing slowly on him, she said, "Still having a good time, hmm? Still think it's fun to push around people who aren't as tough as you are? Problem is, these days, you're never really sure who's tough and who's not, are you?"

"Oh God," the young punk said in a shaky voice, "You're a boomer, aren't you? Shit, we didn't know!"

Reaching him, Nene came very close, causing the terrified ganger to cringe, and said, "Oh, I'm not a boomer. I'm just somebody you shouldn't have picked on, that's all. Now what are we going to do to set this right? I know! Since you've cost me all this trouble, it's only fair that you make it up to me, hmm?"

Gulping, the young punk said, "Sure! Anything! Wha- What do you want?"

Smiling sweetly in a manner that chilled the ganger's blood, Nene replied, "That's an easy one. You see, I'm a little down on my luck right now, and I think I can use pretty much everything you guys have. Cash, weapons, some of your clothes, stuff like that. Oh, and you can throw away any dope you might have. That's just not my style." And, seeing the incredulous look on the punk's face, she added, "Or, I guess I could just take out a little more frustration on you, and then pick out what I want afterwards. Which would you rather?"

Gulping again, the young punk said hastily, "Shit! Just point out what you want, lady! It's yours!"

Still smiling, Nene said mockingly, "Now that's what I like to see. Respect for the authorities. Keep this up, and you'll be a model citizen in no time. Now get moving."

With little choice, the defeated ganger did just that.

Nene exited at the next stop, figuring that she'd probably worn out her welcome on the maglev. In fact, she thought it likely that the train's AI had, by now, put out an emergency call, and given what had occurred, it wasn't entirely unlikely that the ADP would be alerted. After all, how else could it interpret the incident? She was pretty certain that whatever kind of brain was built into the maglev was much more apt to classify her as a rogue boomer than as a revenant from beyond the grave. Or whatever she really was now. At any rate, it really didn't matter to her. She didn't plan on sticking around to talk to any of her old colleagues just then.

Dressed now in black fatigue pants (too big, but that's how they were supposed to fit anyway), a black t-shirt with the ever-familiar smiley face logo, this one with a bleeding bullet hole in it's forehead and the caption 'Have a Nice Day, Asshole!' scrawled in red beneath, a black leather long-coat and black military jungle boots, Nene figured that she was pretty effectively camouflaged for this part of town. Timex City wasn't far away, but neither was the dark heart of the Outer District, and Nene had no wish to draw further attention to herself. Not yet, anyway.

In addition to the new wardrobe, she had picked up a few other useful items as well. A couple of hundred yen, pocket change really, but handy nonetheless, a couple of knives of various makes, and even an ancient .380 automatic that had been shoved down one of the punk's waistband. Not the greatest haul to be sure, but worlds better than what she'd had.

Under her arm, she carried her dress uniform, ruined as it was now, intending to dump it at the first opportunity. It wouldn't have paid, she knew, to have left it behind on the train. She was determined to leave as little trail for any potential investigators as possible at this point.

Finding a convenient dumpster, overflowing of course in this neighborhood, she rid herself of one more link to her past. But, pushing the uniform down into the trash, she found that there was one thing she just couldn't throw away. Carefully, she un-pinned her dress badge, golden and highly reflective with a permanent gloss finish, and just stared at it for a moment. She'd been so proud the day she'd earned the right to wear that badge, number 718269. _Her _number! Almost as proud as the first time Sylia had let her don a hardsuit and proclaimed her a fully trained member of the Knight Sabers. Both of those events had marked turning points in her life, and both were achievements she had earned on her own merits. And, she realized darkly, both were just another part of everything that had been taken from her so unfairly.

Sighing, she pinned the badge to an inside pocket of the long coat where it would remain safely unseen. Even if she couldn't bear to part with it, she much preferred that it stayed out of sight in this part of town, lest the events on the train should repeat themselves.

Leaving the dumpster behind, she turned in the direction of the place she both dreaded to revisit, and felt drawn to like a moth to a flame. The place where, almost exactly a year ago, it had all happened. Raven's Garage.

The call reached Assistant Chief of Police Leon McNichol at home at around three A.M., rousing him from a restless slumber. Not that he'd really had any other kind of slumber over the last year.

Jerking to reluctant wakefulness, he slapped the 'acknowledge' key on his phone, and, as the display came to life, showing him only the caption, "Cellular Phone Call, No Video", he croaked, "McNichol. And it better be good this early."

"Weird would be a better way to put it, McNichol." Said a husky feminine voice on the other end. "Why don't you drag your ass out of bed and come down here so I can go over this with you?"

Frowning, and fully awake now, Leon said, "Takashi? What the hell are you doing down here? I thought they were keeping you chained down at the academy up in Kobe."

The other laughed humorlessly, and said, "Yeah, God forbid a loose canon like ol' Sergeant Major Takashi should be prowling around the streets in Mega Tokyo. Hell only knows what she might do to ruin one of the new chief's precious PR projects, right?"

Leon snorted, and said, "Yeah, something like that. Let me guess. You came down here and put yourself on the Christmas schedule so some of the line troopers could have it off. Do you think you could've bothered telling somebody?"

Takashi sighed, and said, "Ah, hell, Leon. It's not that big a deal. You know I do this every year. Most of them have families, and I've got nobody but Yoshi. Granted, I'm pretty attached to the mutt, but he doesn't give a damn if it's Christmas, and I'm sure those families do. Anyway, I didn't call you at home to debate holiday schedules."

"Ok," Leon said, "Then just what the hell did you call for? What've you got, and why is it so weird that you need me down there? Shit, you're carrying just as much ass on your collar as I am. What's the deal?"

The Sergeant Major hesitated a moment, unusual for her, and then said, "Well, it's like this. We got an automated call from the Transit Authority about some kind of incident on one of the maglevs down near Timex City. The call came to us instead of the rail cops because the damn AI had marked it as possibly boomer related."

"Alright," Leon said, "And?"

"And," the other continued, "When we got down here, of course the shit was long over. Pretty much everybody had scattered, but we were able to snag a couple of the perps and get at least a half-assed story out of them. Seems a few wanna-be gang bangers started harassing some chick on the train, and she proceeded to hand them their asses on a silver platter. Moved like greased lightening, broke bones with her bare hands, all the usual shit you'd expect."

Frowning again, Leon said, "Yeah, sounds pretty typical for a screw-loose android, or maybe a cybered up freakazoid. So, again, why the hell did you wake me up in the middle of the friggin' night for this?"

"Well," Takashi said mildly, "Take a look at this image we down-loaded from the security system and then you tell me."

As the image came in, line by line, Leon's expression slowly changed from annoyance to disbelief.

On the phone's screen, clearly captured by the train's nearly invisible micro-cam, was a shot of a young, red-haired woman wearing a soiled and torn ADP dress uniform, a fierce expression on her too-familiar face as she assisted some young punk in stabbing himself in the thigh.

"Oh, my God." Leon said in an almost inaudible voice. "Nene?"

"So, McNichol," Takashi said in a lilting voice, "You still wondering why I woke your ass up?"


	2. Chapter 2

_Alright, here's chapter 2 despite a very luke-warm reaction and thanks to those of you who did review._

As she finally reached her destination, Nene felt her determination melting away. Something still called to her from Raven's Garage, but at the same time her stomach clenched tight and her knees became weak just at the thought of going back inside. But the crow had no such reservations.

Cawing loudly, it swooped down to land at the threshold of one of the open bay doors. No light or life emanated from inside, and the entire building, obviously ravaged by fire, had fallen into disrepair. Still, the crow hopped back and forth and cawed impatiently, apparently urging her inside.

"Ok, already." She said, sullenly. "I'm coming. Just give me a minute."

As she stepped reluctantly inside, her hand brushed the doorway, and she was immediately assaulted by a flurry of images.

As if she were watching on a movie screen, she saw the garage as it had been that night, it's usual clutter and brick-a-brack lying about, clumsily but lovingly covered over with holiday decorations. And there, at the back, in the office, she saw six familiar figures. She even heard their laughter as they conversed and joked and drank wine and champagne together, a pile of presents under the tiny tree in the corner behind them

"For Christ's sake, Pops," Priss said, "I can't believe that you were just gonna stay boarded up in this hole by yourself on Christmas!"

"Yeah," Linna agreed, "And after Sylia invited you up to her place to join us, too. You're not getting anti-social on us, are you?"

Dr. Raven chuckled, and said, "Getting? Linna, my dear, I've been anti-social for years now. But with the state of society, who can blame me?"

There was warm laughter all around, and Nene heard her former self saying, "Gee, Dr. Raven, that's awfully cynical, isn't it? We're part of society, and it doesn't seem like you mind having us around."

The old man smiled, and said, "Well, there are always exceptions to every rule. And you young ladies pretty well define that."

Again there was laughter, and then Sylia said, "You're certainly not wrong there, Doctor. But far be it for us to leave a friend alone on Christmas. Since you declined to come to us, we wouldn't have it any other way than to come to you. Right, Mackie?"

Mackie had laughed and said, "Sure, Sis. You're the next best thing to family, after all, Doctor Raven."

With a groan, Nene jerked her hand away from the doorway, wrenching herself away from the happy, bygone scene. She just didn't want to see what she knew came next.

Unfortunately, as she followed the crow deeper into the ruined garage, it rapidly became impossible to keep the images away. Every stray object she brushed against triggered another scene in her mind's eye, and eventually, as she neared the office, her contact with the floor itself seemed to do so. She moaned, and dropped to her knees as the images forced their way in, leaving her no escape from the tragedy she desperately didn't want to relive.

Again, she saw the happy group of friends, now all slightly drunk and nearly ready to start attacking the perfectly innocent presents behind them. And then it happened.

From outside, in the bay, there was the clatter of a roll-up door raising and then lowering again. Conversation abruptly ceased, and all eyes turned toward the sound.

"What the hell," Priss muttered, hand reaching automatically into her jacket, as four disconcerting figures strode into view.

Three men and a woman, most certainly not invited guests, made their way slowly across the bay toward them, smug expressions on their faces. Those who had faces, that is. The woman, obviously cybered in ways that hadn't been socially acceptable for years, had only a reflective chrome mask for a face, with a single horizontal slit where her eyes should have been that glowed greenly. God only knew how she ate or breathed.

As they neared, they fanned out, neatly covering everyone, and stopped a couple of meters from the group of friends.

Dr. Raven, playing it cool, said, "Something I can help you folks with? I'm closed right now, by the way. It is Christmas, you know."

One of the men, probably the biggest oriental male any of them had ever seen, dressed all in black leather and wearing mirrored black shades, smiled coldly and said in a deep, rumbling voice, "Help us? No, doc, I don't think so. I'm thinking you're gonna be way too busy trying to help yourselves for that."

There was a chorus of cruel laughter at that, and then things had begun to happen very quickly.

Priss surged to her feet, her new hand-cannon, a Christmas present Dr. Raven had presented to her just a few minutes before, suddenly in her grasp and aimed right between the big man's eyes.

"Help ourselves!" She yelled. "The hell with that! You'd better get your asses out of here before I shoot 'em off, you son of a bitch!"

Again there was laughter, and the large man said, "Yeah, you're pretty scary, all right. But you just don't get it, do you?"

Suddenly, from his still-open mouth, a thin, clawed metallic appendage shot out, whipping around the pistol and tearing it from Priss's grasp. Retracting it, he took the pistol in his hand and looked it over appreciatively.

"Not bad," he said. "Custom make. Probably enough stopping power to put down a charging rhino. Or boomer." And, looking to Dr. Raven, he inquired, "Your handiwork, doc?"

Frowning, Dr. Raven replied, "Yeah. What's it to you?"

Smiling again, he said cheerfully, "Oh, nothing much. I just figure it's going to be worth a lot since it's a one of a kind now." And then he very casually shot Dr. Raven in the chest.

The 7.63mm round, powered by a full-sized magnum rifle cartridge, slammed into the doctor like a freight train, shattering his sternum and rupturing his heart like a blood-filled balloon before ripping through his spinal column on the way out. The impact lifted the doctor's frail body from the ground and slammed it against the wall like a rag doll. He was dead before he hit the floor.

"You bastard!" Priss screamed, grabbing a chair and charging the doctor's murderer with no thought for caution. "I'll kill you!"

But the big man just stood impassively as Priss swung the chair with all her might, shattering it over his head and shoulder. He cocked his head sardonically as she stared in disbelief, and said in a flat voice, "Ow." Then he hit her with a lazy back-hand that sent her sailing to rebound off the same wall that Dr. Raven had hit, landing almost on top of his bloodied corpse.

Dazed, half-conscious, and bleeding from the nose and mouth, Priss nonetheless forced herself to her knees, and reached for the table to pull herself the rest of the way up.

As this had occurred, other things had happened simultaneously.

Nene screamed, and backed into the nearest corner, mind momentarily numb with fear and horror. Linna, combat reflexes taking over, vaulted from her chair and landed in a ready crouch. Sylia, hand darting into her purse, rolled from her chair, and, still rolling, fired all four shots from her .32 caliber Derringer into the big man's face and torso.

Just as before, the big man simply stood there as the bullets struck him, tearing small nicks into the flesh of his face and having no apparent effect at all on his chest. Visible in the small holes on his face was just a trickle of blood and the glint of metal underneath.

"Shit!" Mackie exclaimed, "He's a boomer!"

The big man shook his head slightly, and said, "Only legally, boy. I just got rid of most of that soft, messy meat a long time ago, that's all." Then, motioning toward one of the other men, a bald headed, blue-eyed occidental who was bare-chested despite the chilly December weather, he said, "Now, my buddy Razz over there, he's a boomer. Got tired of being diddled by his fag owner and sliced him to little bits. I've kind of taken him under my wing since then, you could say."

With that, Razz slowly advanced on Mackie, a menacing expression on his face. In a raspy voice he said, "You look kind of 'sweet' yourself, boy. You queer? 'Cause I can't stand queers. As a matter of fact," He paused, raising a fist to Mackie's terrified face, and suddenly popped four shimmering, humming blades from his knuckles before continuing, "I just take a personal offense to their existence. You get where I'm coming from?"

Gulping, Mackie stammered, "I- I'm not gay! Really! I like girls! A lot!"

Razz chuckled menacingly, and said, "Is that so?" And, turning slightly, he addressed the chrome-faced woman. "You hear that, Delilah? He likes girls. So you two have something in common!"

Delilah harrumphed in a synthesized, metallic voice, and said, "Cute. But you know how it is. I like both sides of the fence. And he is a cute one. I think I'll play with him for a while. Be a dear, and toss him over, will you?"

Razz chuckled again and, grasping Mackie by the collar with his off hand, said, "Sure, why not?" With that, he lifted Mackie effortlessly, and casually chucked him in Delilah's direction. Without missing a beat, she plucked him from the air, holding him at arm's length without apparent strain.

Gazing into Mackie's wild eyes with her glowing optic slit, Delilah purred, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna show you what fun's all about, little man. And we'll just see what's left afterwards."

Tucking Mackie under one arm, she turned on her heel and headed for a storage room at the back of the garage. Pulling the door closed behind her, she said over her shoulder in a silky voice, "Don't wait up, fellows!"

While this was happening, Sylia regained her feet, not even bothering to re-load the Derringer, and Linna charged after Mackie.

"Hey!" She yelled. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

But as she passed the third man, an ebony giant in a cheap black suit, his arm shot out, and his fingers locked around her throat, stopping her cold. "Naw," he said. "Let Delilah do her thing. You're gonna be kinda busy in a minute anyway." With that, he jerked Linna off her feet, and despite her best efforts, she was unable to pry his steely fingers loose.

He brought her up close, face to face, and said, "Yeah, you're a cutie, all right. I can imagine all kinds of kinky shit with you. But I ain't Delilah. Business is business to me." There was an audible crunching sound, then, as he flexed his hand and crushed Linna's throat and vertebrae, dropping her lifeless body to the floor at his feet.

She fell like a broken doll, arms and legs splaying out in odd directions, and there was an expression more of shock than of terror in her staring eyes. A thin line of blood dribbled from her open mouth to the concrete.

Again, Nene screamed, joined by a feral growl from Priss as she finally regained her feet. "Goddamn you all!" Priss husked, looking around desperately for a weapon, any weapon. "There's no way it can end like this! You bastards! Whatever happens here tonight, I swear to God, somehow you're all gonna pay for this!"

There was more laughter from the three males, and now odd noises, punctuated by occasional masculine screams, could be heard coming from the room where Delilah had taken Mackie.

Razz grinned cruelly, and said, "Huh! Sounds like somebody's having a good time back there!"

The big man chuckled, and said, "Yeah, and I don't think it's the boy."

Finally, Priss could take no more. Though Sylia, anticipating what was to come, screamed, "Priss, no!" it was too late.

With a bellow of rage, she charged the big man again. She hit him low with her shoulder like a linebacker, hoping to at least knock him off balance and then go from there. But it didn't work that way. Not only did he not budge, but Priss felt something pop in her shoulder and agony lanced through her body. And then, in a single quick motion, the big man locked his arms around Priss, pinning her arms to her side, and snatched her up off her feet.

Her eyes widened as the pressure on her ribs increased, and the breath was pressed from her body. "Ah, shit!" she said in a hoarse whisper. The big man just held her there, gasping, squirming and kicking futilely, slowly turning blue from lack of oxygen.

"Let her go." Sylia said in the most authoritative voice she could manage. "There has to be some way we can settle this. Why are you doing this!"

The big man just smiled, still holding Priss in his grasp, her struggles slowly becoming weaker, and said, "The oldest reasons under the sun, lady. Fun and profit." With that, he slowly flexed both arms inward, producing an odd, sickening crackling sound as Priss's ribs and spine gave way. She screamed, gurgling on her own blood as sharp splinters of bone tore through her lungs and other internal organs, and then was silent. The big man held her for a moment more and then dropped her to the concrete next to Linna, just another broken doll for their collection.

As Sylia and Nene stared in horrified silence, Razz clapped slowly, and said, "Nice, Tin Man, real nice. Couldn't have done it better myself."

Furtively, Sylia's eyes darted to Nene, and she said just one word. "Go."

With that, she whipped around into a spinning back kick, catching Razz off guard and connecting with his temple. The move was perfectly timed and executed, and carried as much force as Sylia's toned body could muster behind it. Razz staggered back, not really dazed but definitely surprised. Growling, he raised both fists in front of him in a skilled fighting stance and extended both sets of glittering knuckle claws.

Sylia too squared off, taking up a looser, more fluid stance indicative of a softer martial arts style, one more suited to evasion and redirection of a foe's momentum. Over her shoulder, again she hissed, "Go!" But Nene remained rooted to the spot, too terrified and shocked to move.

Razz smiled as he advanced slowly on Sylia, and said, "Well, shit. Finally a little competition. I was beginning to think that all of you were just gonna roll over and die on us."

Sylia remained silent, in a Zen-like state, not anticipating, merely waiting for time and target to align. Razz saw this, and, nodding appreciatively, took an experimental jab at her. Sylia reacted instantly, slapping the strike aside and taking control of his wrist with her strong hand, her left going to his elbow for what should have been a throw. But Razz had anticipated this, and twisted in her grasp, coming around and under with his off hand, aiming a claw strike at her gut.

Sylia twisted in turn, and, using Razz for a pommel horse, vaulted up and over him, performing a half-twist in mid air to land facing him from behind. From there, she aimed a vicious kick to the back of his right knee, a move that would have taken a human opponent off of his feet instantly. But Razz just took the blow, his inhuman strength keeping him on his feet as he pirouetted around, catching Sylia with a spinning kick that she couldn't avoid, and had to block instead.

The impact shattered her right forearm, and slammed her into the wall with such force that she slumped to the floor breathless, momentarily stunned. And a moment was all it took.

Continuing around with the momentum of his kick, Razz snapped out with a quick front punch, putting his clawed fist completely through Sylia's face and skull, embedding his claws in the concrete behind her. With a satisfied grunt, he yanked his hand free, bringing along blood and gore of all kinds.

Turning slowly toward Nene, he said, "Well, boss, it looks like we're down to the bottom of the barrel. And then there was one."

The Tin Man laughed, and said, "Hell, if I were fishing, I'd probably throw her back. Too small to bother with. But, what the hell. I think we can take our time with her. I don't think she'll give us too much trouble."

Just then, the storage room door opened, and Delilah strutted out, spatters of blood marring the reflective finish of her face. Sauntering up to her fellows, she said, "Ah, that was refreshing. But I'm afraid I might've broken the poor boy. He just wasn't up to servicing a girl of my caliber."

The Tin Man nodded, and, grinning coldly, said, "Well, no big loss. And you're just in time for the finale. I guess you can have first dibs on this one. You might be able to teach her a thing or two."

Delilah chuckled in her metallic voice, and, advancing on Nene said, "Don't look so scared, little girl. I'm about to totally redefine pleasure and pain for you." And then, horribly, a segmented, barbed metallic tentacle snaked from beneath the tight black leather miniskirt Delilah wore, and began to caress Nene's cheek, drawing a thin line of blood as it went. Delilah pressed herself close to Nene then, and in a husky voice said, "Oh, yeah. I love it when they're so innocent."

And then the tentacle had whipped away suddenly and descended toward regions Nene had prayed it wouldn't. What followed was predictable enough, and Nene's screams echoed from the concrete walls around her.

Of course that wasn't the end. Once Delilah had had her fill, there was still enough life left in Nene to satisfy the others. They took their time, and each had his turn. Finally, just before dawn, the ebony giant, whose name was Moe, she'd found out, put an end to her suffering with a quick twist of her head. It was almost a kind of ecstasy when her neck snapped and the various agonies that racked her body ceased.

As this final image slammed into Nene in the present, she threw her head back and screamed her pain out anew. Surging to her feet, she became a mad-woman, raging and screaming and destroying anything undestroyed that she could find in the wrecked garage. How long she was in this state she didn't know. But when it finally wore off, she found herself again on her knees, piles of ash and soot in front of her.

Without thinking, driven by some internal urge she didn't understand, she picked up a handful of the light colored ash and, staring at it for a second, rubbed it all over and into her face. Next, she took a smaller handful of the black soot, and, guided only by touch, applied it to her eyes and lips. Casting about her then, she found a broken shard of mirror, probably from one of the motorcycles that had been in the shop before that night, and examined the results of her efforts.

'Not bad,' she thought, but somehow, something was missing. Acting again on something that passed for instinct, she applied more of the soot in vertical slashes over her eyes and at the corners of her mouth, creating a harlequin's mask effect. 'Yeah,' she thought, 'That's it.'

Standing again, she faced the gaping bay doors, looking out onto Timex City, and said, "Tin Man. Razz. Moe. And Delilah. Four obituaries that haven't been written yet. But they will be. And soon."

But as those words passed her lips, she heard a tiny noise behind her. The familiar clicking of a hammer being cocked back.

Whirling around, she saw just the silhouette of a man behind her, face hidden by the shadows, and an extremely large pistol grasped in a chromed metallic hand. As she crouched, ready to spring at this new threat, a familiar, if changed, voice came from the darkness.

"Who the hell are you, and what are you doing here? This place isn't exactly safe, if you didn't notice."

Nene's heart fluttered momentarily, and, in an incredulous tone she said, "Mackie?"

The other, hearing her voice, gasped sharply, and took a step forward, the dim light from outside illuminating his face, revealing a substantial patch of chrome and a dull red cyber eye. But, reconstructed or not, it was definitely Mackie.

"Oh, my God." He said. "This is impossible. Nene?"

With a sob, she lunged for him, wrapping her arms around him before he even had time to react. "Oh, God, Mackie, I thought you were dead too! Thank God you're not!"

But Mackie didn't return her embrace. Instead, he shoved the gun to her belly, and said, "Bullshit! You can't be Nene! I heard what they did to Nene, every damn little bit of it while I was laying there bleeding and cut to shreds in that goddamned storage room! There wasn't anything I _could _do but listen! And then, when it was all over, I dragged myself out of there with the one arm I had left and I _saw_ what they'd done! I saw all of them, Nene included, dead as a goddamn doornail there on the concrete! So you've got about three seconds to tell me who or what you really are before I blow your guts out through your spine!"

Nene slumped, arms still around Mackie, and said in a hoarse whisper, "Mackie, I don't _know_ what the hell I am! I'm not a damned boomer, though, I know that! And as far as being Nene, well, I don't think that's quite right either. Nene Romanova died last Christmas, not 10 meters from here. But I guess I'm what's left of her, the part that just couldn't accept what'd happened. The part that was determined to make what Priss said come true. The part that screamed so loudly for justice that someone or something heard me and brought me back here to make it happen. I guess that's what I am." Then, looking down, she said, "I'm pretty sure three seconds are up. If you're gonna shoot me, you should get it over with."

Mackie gazed intently at her then, his eyes, real and cybernetic, locking with hers. They spent several seconds like this, staring into each other's eyes, and then an expression of incredulous wonder spread across Mackie's face.

"It is you," he said in a tone of utter bewilderment, and then, joy suddenly lighting his features, he repeated, "It is you!" And then he did return her embrace, clasping her to himself fiercely. "Nene," he sobbed into her shoulder, "Oh, God. I don't know how this is possible, but I don't care. This last year, it's been- I've had to- oh, God, I've missed you all so much!"

Nene just held him and let him cry for a while, tears of her own flowing freely. Finally, though, she said, "Mackie, you're not going to like this, but I've got to tell you some things."

Sniffing, he said, "Like what?"

She sighed, and said, "Well, first off, I'm really glad that you're ok, but you're not really the reason I'm here."

Looking up, Mackie frowned, and said, "What do you mean?"

Nene met his gaze, and said, "I mean that I'm here to do something. To finish something. To set the balance right again."

"You came back to get the bastards who killed the other Sabers." He said flatly. "Who killed you."

She nodded slowly, and said, "That's right. When this happened, I was weak and helpless. I just stood there, cringing in a corner while they murdered my friends, and then I didn't even put up a fight while they raped and murdered me. Well, like I said before, that Nene is dead and gone. I'm not weak or helpless, and God help those sons of bitches when I find them."

Mackie gulped, feeling a shiver run down his spine as he fully realized that this really wasn't the Nene he'd known standing in front of him. Finally, he said, "That's just fine with me. But, Nene, those guys were awfully tough. Even the human ones were mostly metal. Are you really strong enough now to take them on?"

Nene smiled then, something almost like one of her old smiles, and Mackie felt his heart skip a beat. Still smiling, she said, "Well, I'm not exactly sure that I can do it bare-handed. But, with a little help, I shouldn't have to." And, stepping close again, she gazed into Mackie's eyes, some of the old warmth back in her own.

"You will help me, won't you Mackie?" She said imploringly.

Mackie sighed, and, heart melting at her tone, said, "Of course, Nene. What else are friends for?"


	3. Chapter 3

_Well, I'm getting at least one review per chapter so far. That's definitely better than a nail in the head, so I guess I'll keep feeding this back out there. Thanks again to those who're reviewing and please take a minute or two to give me a little feedback if you're reading this; that's the only way I can improve as a writer, after all._

By 3:30, Leon had made it to the place Takashi had told him to meet her, the stop where the maglev passengers said the woman had exited. Rolling up to the ramshackle station, really just a hole in the ground with stairs and overhead cover, Leon saw her waiting for him. Indeed, he could hardly have missed her.

She sat on one of the benches in full line-trooper gear, minus the helmet, which was cinched to a D-ring on the tactical load bearing vest she wore, and her long, straight, raven hair hung down past her shoulders freely. On her right thigh, she carried a Webley .657, basically the automatic version of the Earth Shaker revolver he preferred, and on her left she carried an old, scarred, N-Police style .357 revolver, loaded, he knew, with solid brass-core armor piercers. And across her lap, cradled like a beloved child, she held one of the 12.7mm heavy anti-boomer rifles typically used by ADP snipers, a gun that was almost as long as she was tall. At her feet was a black issue gym bag with 'ADP' stenciled in large blue letters, hopefully containing a set of less conspicuous clothing.

As Leon shut the road chaser's door and sauntered up, he noticed, as he always did after not seeing her for a while, the fine, white tracery of scars on her face and neck that made an otherwise stunning visage merely attractive. He remembered the incident that had necessitated the massive cosmetic surgery that, even with late 2020's medical technology, had been unable to completely restore her. Like everyone else in the ADP, Leon chalked her survival up to her infamous luck. The saying had gone for years, "Don't hang around with Ami. Death always misses her by a hair, and hits her partner center mass." Just one of the reasons she, like Leon, had been promoted beyond the level where she could do anything truly effective anymore.

In his case, the last straw had been his stubborn refusal to give up on the Raven's Garage murders. Not only had a fellow ADP officer been killed, and a teenaged kid maimed for life, but the woman that he had slowly been growing to realize he loved, as opposed to simply lusted after, had been slaughtered as well. And on top of that, he knew that there was a hell of a lot more to the killings than he could tell anyone. Leon knew full well that Priss was a Knight Saber after that hellish night in the Kanto Dump, and it didn't take a genius to do a little math. One known Knight Saber plus three other dead women equals a grudge-hit against the Sabers. The only real shock there had been realizing that Nene was, and most likely always had been, a Knight Saber as well. But, when he'd thought about it, it made a crazy kind of sense, and explained a lot of the odd things he'd noticed about her over the years.

No, Leon just hadn't been able to give that one up, despite a lack of leads and a curious pressure from upstairs to close it up. He'd been able to bullshit his way through as long as Chief Todo was still around, but the whole boomer-terrorist takeover of the ADP tower, which had almost cost the life his niece, had taken all the wind out of his sails. He'd retired in early '34, and the spineless, washed-up piece of corporate shit that they'd put in his place hadn't even had the guts to confront Leon on the issue. Instead, citing Leon's outstanding case record, and long-standing service with the department, he'd had him appointed Assistant Chief of Police in Charge of Personnel and Logistics, a brand new position made up just for him. The translation was that Leon had been put in charge of beans, bullets, and personnel actions for the entire goddamned ADP, a job that, while vitally necessary, bored the living hell out of him. And effectively kept him off of the streets. After all, he'd more or less been handed the lives of every member of the department in the form of equipment procurement and pay and benefit issues, so, as much as he hated the job, he had to make sure it was done right. And the damned chief knew that.

In Ami's case, it had just been a matter of terminal success. One of the first officers to sign on with the department almost eight years ago, she'd been a member and later the Team Sergeant for ADP's short-lived ASWAT program, which had preceded and eventually replaced the disastrous Police Cyborg program. The problem was, she and her merry band of misfits had been so effective, they'd scared someone high up on the food-chain. And so, like Leon, they'd each and every one been offered 'better' positions, some of which were accepted and some of which weren't, but the end result was that ASWAT was quietly mothballed, and mostly forgotten by all but a few. Like Leon, Takashi carried rank and authority theoretically just less than the chief's own, but in practice, they were shut out from all of the department's critical decision-making processes, except where they concerned their own narrow fields. For her, the ADP's one and only Sergeant Major, the title she'd insisted upon, that was training and tactics at the Kobe ADP Academy, where she'd been the commandant for the last four years.

As he approached, Ami said, "Hey! How's it hangin', McNichol? You enjoying your new job as much as I enjoy mine?"

With a grunt, Leon said, "Yeah, you could say that. And I see you're your usual fashionable self tonight. Isn't all that shit a little conspicuous for this neighborhood?"

Ami laughed, and said, "A girl can't be too careful, now can she? There are some awfully talented muggers down this way."

Leon snorted and said, "Shit! You probably know half of them and arrested the other half at one time or another! I should have figured that you'd decide to sit and wait for me alone down here."

She shrugged, and said, "Yeah, well, I didn't really think the line troopies needed to hang around for this. We're likely to be discussing some shit that they don't need to hear or spread, I'm guessing."

"Yeah, could be," Leon agreed. "So what else have you dug up?"

"Not much," Takashi admitted. "Just this." And, unzipping her gym bag, she produced a carefully sealed large plastic evidence bag containing a soiled and much abused ADP dress uniform.

"Huh!" Leon said. "Where the hell did you find that?"

"In a dumpster a few blocks down that way," she said, jerking a thumb in the direction of Timex City. "What? Did you really think I just sat on my ass here for a half-hour? I get enough of that up in Kobe."

Taking the bag from Ami, Leon turned it over slowly, examining the contents through the plastic, and then said, "Well, this is about the most messed up dress uniform I ever saw. There's all kinds of shit on this. Mud, blood, grass stains, you name it. What the hell did she do, drag herself through a ditch?"

"Or maybe a grave yard?" Ami said facetiously.

Frowning, Leon said, "That's not even funny, Takashi. Nene's dead, and this thing's running around with her face. Somebody's got a sick sense of humor, and I plan on finding out who."

Ami looked down, and said, "Shit, I'm sorry, Leon. You're right, it's not funny. She was a friend of yours, and some things are sacred even when it comes to cop-humor. But while you're looking at that uniform, tell me one thing. What do you see that's missing there?"

Still frowning, Leon examined the sealed bag again, turning it this way and that, and finally he said, "Huh! The damn badge is gone. You sure it wasn't in the dumpster?"

Ami shook her head and said, "Yeah, I'm sure. Sucker was a mess, but I took a pretty good look, and you know I don't miss much with this iron eye." For emphasis, she activated the active laser sighting in her right eye, one of the very few pieces of cyberware she possessed, lending it an eerie red glow.

Leon flinched, having forgotten all about it, and said, "Aw, knock that shit off, will you? You know how I feel about that crap."

Ami shrugged, and said, "I've always been a big fan of what works, Leon. And this works for me. But anyhow, I'm pretty sure the badge wasn't there. And it wasn't in any of the nearby cans or dumpsters either. So what does that say?"

"What does it say?" Leon replied. "Hell, how do I know? Maybe it just says that the crazy bitch chucked it on top of a building or down a storm grate so that nobody could get a look at it. What else would it say?"

Considering, Ami said slowly, "Well, I know how I feel about my badge, McNichol. And I think I know how you feel about yours. I've chucked mine across the chief's desk a few times over the years, but I don't think I could ever just throw it in the garbage. Do you think maybe she felt the same way?"

A wary expression on his face, Leon said carefully, "Just what the hell are you trying to say, Takashi? Didn't we already cover this one? Nene's dead. End of story. Shit, I should know! I was the one who pulled the sheet over her head before they loaded her up in the coroner's wagon, for Christ's friggin' sake!"

Annoyed now, Ami said caustically, "Yeah, I got that part, McNichol. And I was at the funeral, remember? I don't miss department funerals if there's any way I can help it. I'm responsible for training each and every one of them, and when they die, a part of me goes with them. But what if this thing, whatever it is, doesn't just look like her? What if it thinks it _is_ her? Did you think of that?"

Leon took an involuntary step back, and said, "Aw, give me a break, Ami! Where the hell did you come up with that?"

Ami shrugged, looking slightly puzzled, and said, "Y'know, McNichol, I'm not too sure about that. But when I saw that badge was missing, unpinned, mind you, not ripped off, and then thought back to what I'd seen in the security downloads and heard from the perps, it made me think. What would I do, how would I act, if I thought I'd been murdered and come back from the grave? And in that light, it kind of made sense." Looking down, Ami continued, "Hell, I'm not saying that that's what's really going on, of course. I've seen some weird shit in my time, but nothing that'd make me believe that. But it sure is possible for some sick asshole to have rebuilt and reprogrammed a boomer to _think_ it was her, now isn't it?"

Leon shook his head, and said, "Sure it's possible, but why the hell would anybody do it? And, more to the point, who in hell that's still alive knew her well enough to pull it off?"

Ami shook her head as well, and said, "You knew her a lot better than I did, McNichol. All I really remember about her is the fact that she had to re-start my damn academy three times before she finally made it through. And I'm still pretty sure she hacked the stress-firing course's scoring computer to pass. Anyway, it would have to be somebody close to her, and that somebody would have to know a lot about boomers. You know anybody who fits that bill?"

In his head, Leon suddenly pictured a young man, once handsome in an adolescent way, but now torn and scarred and bitter, a victim who, against all the odds, had survived. "Y'know," Leon said slowly, "Now that I think about it, there just might be somebody like that after all."

Below ground, in the maintenance bays and sub-basement levels, the heart of Raven's Garage had survived undamaged. The fire upstairs, perpetrated long after the murders by some anonymous pyromaniac, had left the sub-levels untouched, and apparently the murderers either hadn't known or hadn't cared about them. More likely the former, because for people as obviously obsessed with cyber-tech as they'd been, the sub-levels would've been a treasure trove.

Mackie led Nene, crow once again perched on her shoulder, through the various rooms, showing her some of the projects he'd spent the last few months working on. From time to time, he glanced at the crow curiously, and finally he said, "Uh, Nene, I've just got to ask this. What's with the bird?"

She frowned, considering, grasping for the right words to describe something she didn't really understand herself, and finally said, "Well, it's kind of complicated. It's my- guide, I guess you'd say. It- brought me back here, I think. And, in some way, we're connected. I-" She stopped, not knowing what else to say, and finally, shaking her head, said, "I can't explain it any better than that. I don't really know any more. I just know that it's important to me. Important _for _me, somehow."

Mackie nodded slowly, understanding perhaps less than he had before, and said, "I see. I guess." Then, shaking his head, he said, "No, I don't. But I guess it doesn't really matter, does it?"

Nene shook her head, and said, "No, it doesn't. All that matters now is equipping myself and going out to find those bastards."

Mackie sighed, and said, "Yeah, I guess so. If that's what you have to do, Nene."

She stopped, and turned to gaze at him with her disconcerting blue eyes. "Mackie," she said slowly, "I thought you said you wanted to help me. Don't you?"

He looked down at the floor, unable to look her in the eye, and said, "Nene, if you need my help, you'll get it. But-"

"But what?" She said, frowning and moving a step closer to him.

"It's just, I- That is- Oh, goddamn it, Nene, now that you're here, I don't want to loose you again. I know, you didn't come back for me, you came back for them. But Nene, whatever you've gone through, you don't know what it's like to live after everyone and everything you care for is gone! Christ, there's not a day that goes by that I don't ask myself, 'Why do you bother, shit-head? What's left that's worth going on for?' And Nene, I haven't come up with a good answer yet! I just keep going on because I can't imagine anything else."

Nene bit her lip in concern, feeling the raw waves of pain emanating from Mackie, and then slowly she took him in her arms as he began to sob again. As she held him, she felt something inside her shift, and she gained a new perspective on her situation. The dead, she realized, still cried out for vengeance, but it seemed she was needed by the living as well.

She stroked the back of his neck lightly, reassuringly with her fingernails, and said quietly, "Oh, Mackie, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I know what you've lost, but I didn't think about how it's been for you. I'm here now, though, and even if I can't promise that I'll stay, I can promise that things will be better after I've been and gone. No one, living or dead, is going to be able to rest until this thing is put right, and that's what I'm here to do. I'm sure of that now."

Mackie sniffed, and said, "I'm sorry. I'm acting like a big damn baby, I guess."

Nene hugged him tighter, and said, "No, you're not. And don't let that damn, stupid male ego tell you that you are. You're lonely, and hurt, and sad, just like anyone would be in your position. But remember this, Mackie. Touch me. Feel me. I died, but now I'm here. What does that tell you?"

His one natural eye widening in comprehension, Mackie said in a whisper, "If you're here, then… then the others, they must be- somewhere!"

Still holding him close, she nodded and said, "Exactly. Death isn't the end, Mackie. I don't really know what it is, I can't remember, but they're there. Waiting. I'm sure of that. And I'm also sure that they won't be able to move on, any more than I could, until the accounts have been balanced. Until those responsible have paid us what they owe."

"Fine, then," Mackie said in a voice husky with emotion, "When this is all done, take me with you. I've got nothing left here."

Nene gasped then as she finally realized the full depth of Mackie's agony, and fresh tears came to her eyes as well. "Oh, no, Mackie, you don't mean that! You don't know what you're saying. Trust me when I say, life is worth living. You're in pain now, but you have years and years ahead of you to put this behind. And you can! You just have to find something that's worth living for."

With that, acting purely on instinct, Nene slid her hand up to the back of Mackie's head, fingers twining in his hair, and slowly brought her lips to his. Surprised at first, he pulled back slightly, but as the kiss lingered and deepened, he began to respond, a rush of fire shocking him as it expanded throughout his body, igniting things in him he'd though long dead.

As both their passions mounted, they staggered sideways into the cold, concrete wall, and slowly sank down to the floor, still intertwined.

What followed was something that Mackie had dreamed about for years, but had never thought would actually occur. And after what had happened, to him and to them, he hadn't even been able to bear such thoughts for almost a year. But tonight, for a time at least, all his fears, all his pain, all his emotional scars were stripped away, leaving him open and ready to enjoy at least this brief bit of happiness. And, best of all, he knew it was the same for her.

As they rolled in the direction of Timex City, Leon driving, Ami reviewed the case files from last year's tragedy. Mercifully, she'd changed out of the line trooper gear, but Leon wasn't sure if what she'd changed into was any better. Instead of the lightly armored fatigues and heavy ballistic vest, she wore a faded old pair of blue jeans, a pair of scuffed black biker boots, a plain black t-shirt, and an elaborately decorated, much-worn black leather jacket, which, in addition to the silver ADP badge pinned to the front, held all sorts of gang-related accoutrements, not to mention the name and logo of the _Kamaitachi_, a minor go-gang that had inhabited the Fault region for as long as Leon could remember.

Shaking his head, he said, "Damn, Ami, you just can't leave the past behind, can you? I thought you'd gotten rid of that damn jacket years ago."

She snorted, and said, "Remember what I said about the badge, McNichol? This thing is just a different kind of badge. Everything on it tells part of the story of my life. I guess I'm just sentimental about shit like that."

Leon shook his head, and said, "Yeah, you must be. I see you're still carrying that old .357 too."

Ami frowned, and said, "You're damned right I am. And you know why."

He nodded, and said, "Jeena gave it to you, right?"

Looking down from the screen in front of her, she said, "Yeah, that's right. It was her old duty weapon back in her Tokyo PD days, before the Quake. She gave it to me the day I graduated from the academy, and I've carried it ever since. If it wasn't for her, I would've never joined the ADP. I'd either still be running with a go-gang down in the Outer District, or more likely I'd be dead by now. I owe her a lot."

In a subdued voice, Leon said, "Yeah, you're not the only one. You ever talk to her anymore?"

Ami shook her head, and said, "Not in quite a while. She was never the same after that shit that happened to her back in '29. After she quit the department, we kept in touch for a while, but she just dropped out a few years ago. I was gonna ask if you'd heard from her."

Leon shook his head, and said, "Naw, same story from my end. I haven't heard anything in years."

They were both silent for a moment, thinking about their lost friend, and then Leon said, "So, find anything interesting in that file?"

She nodded, and said, "Yeah, a couple of things. But tell me something. Why the hell didn't the loop ever get closed on this? There are still leads to be followed in here, and that Stingray kid gave damn good descriptions of the assailants. What the hell happened?"

Leon sighed, and said, "Ah, shit, you know how these things work. The perps were all freaks from the Outer District, and even we don't have any pull down there. All the kid ever got was nicknames, and I doubt any of those bastards ever had a real ID to track down anyway. I went down there a few times, tried to get some people to talk to me, but nobody would say a damned thing. It was like chasing ghosts. And then there was the pressure from above."

Ami frowned, and said, "Yeah, I heard something about that, but I never did get it. Why the hell were they pushing you to close this so fast? A cop was murdered, for Christ's sake, and not even in the line of duty. Don't they give a damn?"

Leon sighed, and said cynically, "C'mon, Ami, you've been around more than a day. What do you think?"

"Yeah," she agreed, "you're right. All the powers-that-be care about is their own agenda. But why would they want this swept under the rug?"

Hesitantly, Leon said, "I've- got a theory about that. But it's sure as hell nothing I could write into a case file."

Ami frowned, and said, "Ok, care to enlighten me?"

Leon shook his head, and said, "It's based on some information that's damn confidential. I think it could still be damaging if it got out."

Ami rolled her eyes, and said, "Oh, give me a break, Leon. Even if you didn't know me well enough to know I don't screw over my friends, we've both got enough dirt on each other that neither one of us is going to talk about anything if the other doesn't agree. So spill it, McNichol."

Looking down momentarily, Leon came to a decision and said, "Oh, what the hell. I've been keeping this to myself for too damn long anyway. One of the victims, Priss Asagiri, was a Knight Saber."

Ami's eyes widened, and she said, "Say what! And you know this _how_, McNichol?"

Leon sighed, and said, "It's a long story. But I know. I saw her once, in a hardsuit, without her helmet. She never knew about it, of course. You're not the only one who knows how to keep their mouth shut."

"Son of a bitch, Leon!" She said. "And how long have you known this?"

He shrugged, and said, "About a year and a half now, I guess."

Ami shook her head, and said, "Well, I'll admit, I only know a couple of things that might be that big. Did you just plan on taking this one to your grave with you someday, or what?"

Leon nodded slowly, and said, "Yeah, something like that. But you see the light this throws on things?"

Ami considered for a moment, and then, eyes widening again, said, "Oh, shit! You're saying that this was a hit of some kind! And four Knight Sabers, four dead women…!"

"Yeah," Leon said slowly, "The math adds up, doesn't it? If you wondered why nobody's seen the Knight Sabers for the last year, the answer's staring at you from that screen."

"Well, I'll be damned," Ami said quietly. And then, frowning, she said, "But if that's the case, then you're saying that Nene-"

"Was a Knight Saber too," Leon finished, and then said, "And probably always had been. Kinda' hard to swallow?"

Ami nodded, and said, "You could say that. But she did have talent when it came to computers, and the Sabers sure as hell had a good hacker on their team. Son of a bitch! No wonder they always seemed to be one step ahead of everything we were doing! She was sitting right there in the command center feeding them information the whole damned time! On second thought, McNichol, maybe it's not so hard to swallow after all."

"Yeah, that's how I figured it," Leon said. "So now do you get why they wanted to wrap this up so fast?"

"Yeah, I get it," Ami said ruefully. "Who-the-hell-ever had this done has pull upstairs, and they don't want anybody sniffing out their trail. Goddamn it."

"Exactly," Leon said, and then added, "Hence my little promotion when I wouldn't drop it."

Ami nodded slowly, and said, "So what now, McNichol?"

Leon frowned, and said, "What do you mean, what now? It's history, Ami. After this long, the trail's dead. Right now, I just want to figure out if the Stingray kid has anything to do with this damn Nene-bot and wrap that shit up."

"Fukabayashi." Ami said, apparently a complete non-sequiter.

"Excuse me?" Leon said, bewildered.

"Masami Fukabayashi. That's the name of the guy the Stingray kid was calling 'Tin Man'. He likes 'Tin Man' because it's descriptive of both the fact that he's about 90 cyberware, and that, as far as he's concerned, he doesn't have a heart."

The road chaser squealed to a stop as Leon slammed on the brakes, and, looking at Ami incredulously, he said, "You know the son of a bitch!"

Ami nodded, and said, "You could say that. I spent a couple of years trying my best to kill him, back in my biker days. He put a knife through my boyfriend's heart in a bar fight, and I didn't take kindly to that. By the time I finally caught up to him, he'd gone to work for some Triad I'd never heard of and one of the fringe benefits was a full-body rebuild. If Jeena hadn't been after him at the same time, and showed up when she did, he'd have killed me that night. That's how we met, by the way. Just another thing I owe her for."

Leon shook his head, and said, "Son of a bitch. And the others?"

Ami looked at the composite images put together by an ADP CGI tech, and said, "Delilah. That's the only name I ever heard of her using, but she's a regular at a place charmingly known as The Asshole of the World. It's a little dive bar smack in the middle of the Canyons, and it's a watering hole for pit fighters and their managers, a place where they can arrange fights." Clicking to the next image, she said, "Moe Shapoor. He used to hang out there too. He's a washed up ex-boxer from the States who came over here in the late 2020's to see if he could jump-start his career by cybering up. His career didn't go anywhere, but he did make a new reputation for himself in the pits. And both of them used to do odd jobs on the side if the price was right." Clicking once more, she frowned, and said, "This one I don't know. Razz, the kid called him? And he's supposed to be a boomer, right?"

Leon nodded, and said, "Yeah, that's what he said. And, judging by his description of the integral weaponry and enhanced musculature, I'd guess he was probably a 23C."

"Sounds about right," Ami agreed. "Pre-cursor model to the 33C's, if I remember right. Still a heavy android, but not quite as strong, tough, or smart as the 33's. Good enough that some are still in use as bodyguards and cheap muscle, though. The price went way down after the 33's came out."

"Yeah," Leon said, "That's about it. And from what the kid said, it sounds like this one went rogue and then disappeared into the Canyons. I looked through the old cases to see if I could find any matches, but I couldn't find a damn thing."

Ami nodded, and said, "The kind of people who own those things usually don't file police reports." And, smiling smugly, she added, "So, like I said before; what now, McNichol?"

Leon sighed, and said, "First, we check out Raven's Garage. Judging by where that uniform was dumped, it looks like she might've been heading that way. I still want to find out what's going on with that first."

"And then?" Ami asked.

Determination setting in on his face, Leon said, "Then we make a solid case for re-opening the Raven's Garage murders. In light of new investigative leads, of course."

Ami nodded appreciatively, and said, "Y'know, McNichol, I used to tell Jeena she was full of shit when she said you'd be a decent cop some day."

Leon laughed, and said, "Yeah, that's what I used to tell her when she said the same thing about you."

"Huh!" Ami said. "I guess she knew what she was talking about after all then."


	4. Chapter 4

_Well, I'm still getting reviews so at least I know there's some interest in this. Thanks again to you reviewers and here's chapter 4._

As they lay in the after-glow, snuggled together on Nene's borrowed long coat on the hard concrete floor, both did their best not to think of the future or the past. For the moment, they clung to the now, just savoring each other's closeness wordlessly. But it couldn't last forever.

Sighing regretfully, Nene said, "Mackie, I have to get up."

"I know," he said in a quiet voice. "I know."

She smiled then, and said playfully, "I don't really want to, though."

He smiled in return, some of his old light-heartedness shining through, and said, "But you have to, right?"

She nodded, and said, "That's right. So! Can we-" and then she stopped abruptly, frowning.

Concerned, Mackie said, "What is it, Nene?"

"Somebody's here," she said in an odd, distracted voice. "Upstairs."

Mackie frowned, and said, "How do you know? None of the alarms have gone off."

She shook her head, and said, "No, they're not inside yet. They just pulled up in front. In a cop car."

Mackie shook his head in bewilderment. "Nene, where the hell is this coming from?"

"From the crow," she said distantly. "Didn't you notice that it was gone? It found one of the air ducts and headed for the roof when we… you know."

He blushed and muttered, "Actually, I was a little too busy to notice where the damn bird was…"

"Well," Nene said mildly, "It's on the roof right now, and there's an ADP road chaser outside. Oh, my God, it's Leon! And Sergeant Major Takashi! What the hell is she doing here?"

"Uh, Nene?" Mackie said in a bemused tone, "Are you telling me you can see what that bird sees?"

Nene nodded slowly, and said, "Oh, yeah. I can see everything…"

In wavering black and white, Nene watched as the two senior ADP officers exited the road chaser, and, oddly, was struck by how small the Sergeant Major seemed. Whenever Nene had thought about her in the past, she'd always seemed larger than life somehow, probably because of the sheer hell she'd put Nene through at the academy, ostensibly for her own good. But now Nene realized that that was just how she projected herself, and, in fact, she barely came up to Leon's chest. In truth, she wasn't much bigger than Nene herself, and though she'd always known that, this was the first time it really registered on her. Just more proof of the changes she'd undergone, she supposed.

Through the crow's eyes she saw them cautiously approach the building, and through it's ears, she heard Leon say, "Huh! Damn place looks even worse than the last time I saw it. Never did figure out who torched it, either."

Takashi nodded, and said, "In this neighborhood, it could've been just about anybody. So you think the arson was connected with the murders?"

Leon shook his head, and said, "Maybe. It happened a couple of months afterwards, just about the time I got pulled off the case. I guess it is a little convenient that the crime scene got sanitized just when the case got back-burnered. Then again, maybe we're just being paranoid. Not everything is a conspiracy."

Ami looked over at Leon and said, "No, not everything. Just the shit you'd least expect."

Leon grunted in acknowledgement, and, as they reached the building, both of them unconsciously moved out of the fatal funnel presented by the gaping bay doors, and fell into a semi-stack against the wall. Leon, in the point position, took a quick peak around the corner of the door frame and grunted again.

"Huh!" He said, "Dark as a damn pit. I can't see a thing in there."

"I told you I'm a fan of what works, Leon," Takashi said, tapping her right eye-socket. "Let me take a look."

Leon shook his head, sighed, and traded places with her. Reaching under her jacket to one of the paired shoulder holsters she wore, Takashi slipped out the Webley and, holding it in a close-in instinctive firing position, peeked around the corner. She took a quick scan of the room, maybe three or four seconds long, and then popped back out. Over her shoulder she said, "Well, it looks empty enough. But I thought I saw something on thermals. Faint, but I'd have to take a closer look to figure out what the hell it was."

Leon nodded, and said, "Well, hell, if it's empty, let's go."

Cautiously, weapons drawn but at a low ready, the two officers entered the building. Nene lost sight of them momentarily as they passed through the door, but with a squawk, the crow hopped from it's perch and glided in through the second door.

Pivoting instantly in the bird's direction, Leon said, "What the hell was that?"

Looking over her shoulder, Ami said, "Huh! Looks like a big damn bird. Probably looking for some roaches for dinner."

Shaking his head disgustedly, Leon said, "Yeah, well, lots of luck to him, then. You find anything yet?"

Moving very slowly and looking around frequently, Ami said, "I think so. Most everything's faded back to ambient temperatures, but there's a patch over here by the back that's just a little warmer than the rest of the floor. If I had to guess, I'd say that somebody spent a couple of minutes on their knees over here, maybe an hour or two ago. Pretty hard to tell, really."

"Damn, Takashi. A couple of minutes a couple of hours ago? Can you really tell that much through that damn thing?"

Frowning, Ami said, "With a little practice, sure. And I've had 'this damn thing' since right after I joined the force, almost eight years now. You remember. All you had to do back then was fill out a wish list for 'personal upgrades', and they'd write it off as a work-related expense. I never went in for a whole lot of that, but some of the guys sure did."

Leon shuddered, and said, "Yeah, I remember. And I also remember how many of those guys ended up in the rubber room. Cyber psychosis is nothing to screw around with."

Ami nodded, and said, "You're not wrong. But a lot of cyber psychosis is in your attitude. As long as you keep your perspective on it, and don't start thinking that a few little improvements make you more or less than human, it's not that big a deal. Or at least that's what my shrink tells me."

Leon snorted, and said, "A shrink? You? And just how many of _them_ have _you_ put in a rubber room over the years?"

Ami raised her eyes heavenward, and said, "Ok, laugh if you want, McNichol. But it works. I've seen it work, for people with a lot more metal and plastic in their bodies than I have. And like I keep saying, I'm a-"

"Fan of what works," Leon finished for her. "Yeah, I got that part. Me, I'd rather just make it or fail all on my own. Once you start putting that shit in your body, where do you draw the line? How much does it take before you aren't human anymore? Or do you give up being human with the first piece?"

"Seventy percent, McNichol." Ami said flippantly. "That's what the boomeroid laws say. But you know that as well as I do."

"Sure," Leon said sarcastically, "Seventy percent. That's a nice, round, politically correct number, isn't it? Do you really believe that shit?"

Ami laughed, and said, "Hell no! I've met people with a lot more cyberware than that who were perfectly fine, and I've also run into guys with a lot less who were complete friggin' psychos. And that's not even dragging boomers into the equation. I know how you feel about them, but over the years I've found that not all of them are as bad as most cops think."

Leon shook his head, and said, "Ok, Ami, this isn't the time or place to be getting philosophical. You see anything else in here?"

Shaking her head, Ami said, "No. If we'd gotten here sooner, there might've been foot- or handprints still visible, but we're too late for that. All I can tell is that somebody was here and now they're not."

"Alright," Leon said, "Then I guess there's no point to sticking around. You feel like taking a little trip tonight?"

Cocking her head slightly, Ami said, "Maybe. What've you got in mind?"

"Well," Leon said, "I thought maybe you and I could take a little stroll down to The Asshole of the World. I guess this place doesn't rate any lower than an armpit, but I'd have to see worse to believe it."

Ami snorted, and said, "Oh, you'll believe it all right. This place is the St. Regis by comparison. And the folks who hang out there redefine the term 'rough crowd'." She paused, and, sighing, continued. "But I don't think there's much point to going down there right now. It's almost morning, and all of the creatures of the night tend to crawl back under their rocks about this time. Besides, if we're planning on running into Moe or Delilah down there, I'd like to be a hell of a lot better prepared. The last time I saw either of them, they were cybered up pretty high, and that was years ago. God only knows what they've had done to themselves since, especially if the blood money for the Sabers hit was as good as I think it probably was."

Leon sighed tiredly, and said, "Well, hell, then. I guess we might as well call it a night. You planning on being in town for a while?"

Ami nodded, and said, "If, by that, you mean, 'will I hang around to take you there', then the answer's yes. I keep a little apartment here in Mega Tokyo just in case."

"Sounds good then," Leon said. "You need to go back to the station, or can I drop you-?" At that point, Leon was interrupted by the buzzing of his cell phone, and, whipping it out he said, "Ah, shit. I guess 'Dad' just figured out we took off for the night."

Pressing the receive key, he put the phone to his ear and said, "McNichol. Hey, what's up Chief. Where am I? And who am I with? Jesus, you make it sound like I snuck out to the school dance or some shit." And then, rolling his eyes, he said sarcastically, "No, Chief, we're not at a school. They're all closed up for Christmas, remember? Yeah, Takashi's here with me. We're down in Timex City checking out some weird shit that went on tonight, that's all. Why? Well, because we're cops, for Christ's sake! Yeah, I know investigations isn't really part of either of our jobs anymore but- Yeah, I know there's a bunch of shit I've got to wade through today. What? The Kurasawa packet? What about it? It was a line of duty death, so his widow gets the death benefit. What's hard about that? What do you mean, inconsistencies! It's friggin cut and dried! You want a friggin' claims investigation! You've gotta be shitting me! Alright, alright! I'll be down there in a couple of hours, and we can hash this out face to face. Yeah, fine, I'll let her know. Later!"

With that, Leon jabbed the end key and, shoving the phone back into his jacket angrily said, "Goddamn it! Can you guess what that spineless little son of a bitch just did?"

Ami shook her head resignedly, and said, "Thrill me."

Indignantly, Leon said, "He just told me that there's going to be an investigation on the Kurasawa claim! You know about that one?"

"Yeah," she said regretfully, "Another poor line trooper who got whacked last week by a kit-bash some asshole set loose, right?"

Leon nodded and continued. "That's right. Left behind a wife and two kids. And now the Chief says he reviewed the packet and found 'inconsistencies'. Bullshit! That rat-bastard just knows that there's no way I'll let him cheat that widow and her kids out of the benefits they're entitled to! He figures that'll keep me so occupied I won't have time for anything else until it's settled, and I'll be damned if he's not right! And then I'm sure he'll find something else to saddle me with after that! Goddamn him!"

Ami put a hand on Leon's arm, and said, "Trust me, I know the feeling. All you can do is deal with the shit, and try to run your own agenda on the side. I've been doing it for years. So what else did the old bastard have to say?"

"Oh, nothing you can't figure out on your own," Leon said with disgust. "Just that he wanted to see you first thing in the morning, and he expected an explanation as to what you were doing working the beat without his knowledge. And that he expected that you'd be on your way back to Kobe shortly after."

"Huh!" Ami said angrily, "That's not damn likely. I used to lock horns with Todo on a daily basis and, like you, I usually walked away with what I wanted. I'll be damned if I'll let this spineless, dickless little piece of dried up shit dictate to me. If nothing else, I've got a hell of a lot of vacation time saved up, and I'd just like to see him try to deny me around Christmas."

Leon shook his head, and, obviously still steaming said, "Well, I guess we'll just see what happens, then. Let's get the hell out of here, Ami."

As the two ADP officers left the garage, slamming the road chaser's doors and burning the tires off loudly, Nene was already getting dressed, an expression of grim determination on her face.

"What is it?" Mackie said, worriedly. "What did you see, Nene?"

Without slowing down, she said, "It was Leon and another senior officer named Takashi. What they were doing together, I don't know, but obviously they were looking for me. I guess I wasn't careful enough to throw two cops with that much experience off my trail. But that's ok. I think this has turned into a windfall for me."

"What do you mean by that?" Mackie said.

"Well," Nene said, "Toward the end, they mentioned the name of a place. The Asshole of the World, they called it. Judging by the name, and the way they talked about it, I'd guess it's somewhere in the Canyons." And then, face and tone hardening, she said, "They said they thought they might run into Moe or Delilah there, Mackie. And, somehow, they've figured out who we were. They said that what happened was a paid hit on the Knight Sabers."

Mackie nodded slowly, and said, "I've always known that's what it had to be. Those bastards didn't just wander in here, and the big black guy, Moe, made that crack about business just being business to him right before he killed Linna. That was the last thing I heard before Delilah dragged me into that damn closet." Then, frowning, he said, "Jesus, Nene. Leon's still trying to solve this thing. I never thought about it before, but with Priss and you… It must have hit him almost as hard as it hit me."

Nene shook her head slowly, pulling on the long coat, and said, "It's gonna get him killed if he's not careful. I don't think he or Takashi realizes what they're up against. From what I've heard, she knows her way around the Outer Districts pretty well, but as tough as Leon is, that's just not his turf. If they go around turning over rocks out there, something bad is gonna happen."

Trying to figure how to put it delicately, Mackie said, "Uh, Nene, I'm not exactly sure how to say this, but what makes you think you'll do any better? Have you ever even been to the Outer District?"

Nene shook her head, and said, "No, and that's not going to help matters any, but let me show you something, Mackie, and then tell me what you think."

Reaching into an inside pocket of the long coat, she pulled out one of the knives she'd taken from the punks on the train, a very well-crafted poly-ceramic survival knife with a seven inch blade. As Mackie stared apprehensively, she placed the tip between her breasts, right on the bullet hole in Mr. Smiley's forehead, and, before Mackie could react, jerked with all her might, burying the blade in her chest. The pain was shocking, but nothing compared to what she'd endured at her murderer's hands a year ago.

Mackie's eye went wide and he lunged for her, screaming, "Jesus Christ!" But as he grabbed a hold of her hands, still on the knife's hilt, she just looked into his eyes and said in a whisper, "Watch."

Bracing herself, she reversed her grip on the knife and, straining, ripped it from her breast. Again the pain hit her, worse this time, and she screamed. But only for a second. Blood gushed from the open wound, proof that her perforated heart still beat, but that only lasted for a second as well. As Mackie stared disbelievingly, the wound sealed up before his eyes, leaving not even a scar to mark it's passing.

Nene wiped the bloody blade on her pants leg, and said, "Do you get it now?"

Mackie shook his head slowly, and said, "Get it? I don't think there's any way I'll ever get any of this, Nene. But I see what you mean. I guess you don't have too much to worry about down in the Canyons."

"Hopefully not," she agreed. "I think I've got defense pretty well covered. But that leaves offense, now doesn't it?"

"What've you got in mind?" Mackie said curiously.

"Well," Nene mused, "I'm a lot stronger than I used to be, I think, but all of those bastards were armored in some way. I think I'm gonna need a can opener of some kind, if you know what I mean. And a much bigger gun than the one I took from those idiots on the train."

Mackie nodded, and said, "I think I can accommodate you on both counts. I haven't been completely idle for the last year, and every damn thing I've done has been done with getting back at those sons of bitches in mind."

Nene smiled, and, coming close, brushed her lips to Mackie's cheek. "My knight in shining armor. Speaking of which, there's something else I wondered about…"

"The hardsuits." Mackie said flatly. "Yeah, I've been doing some work there, too. But most of what I've done is cannibalize parts from the old ones to make something for me."

Nene's eyebrows went up, and she said, "For you? What the hell were you planning, Mackie?"

Mackie snorted, and said, "Probably just about what you are, I guess. I figured I'd just put it on once I'd finished it and go out there hunting them. I never got much past that, but I suppose I'd have been happy to just go out in a blaze of glory as long as I could take them with me."

Nene shook her head, and said, "Well, that doesn't have to happen now. You deserve more than that, Mackie, and once this is all done, you should try to get it. Promise me that."

Mackie sighed, and said, "Alright, I guess. But Nene, I-!"

"Shh." She said quietly, putting a finger to his lips gently. "Don't. Just show me the hardware you've been working on so that I can get going. Like the Sergeant Major said, it's already late, and if I'm going to have any chance of running any of them down tonight, I've got to go soon."

"You don't even know where this place is, do you?" Mackie said.

"No," Nene agreed. "But once I hit the Canyons, I'm sure I'll be able to- persuade somebody to tell me where it's at. If you know what I mean."

Mackie rolled his eye, and said, "Yeah, I think I can guess. Well, come on then. The new armory is this way."

"Great!" She exclaimed, and then said, "Oh! And I don't suppose there's any chance you might have a set of wheels I can borrow?"

Mackie shook his head, and said, "Women! Always wanting something. But yeah, I think I've got something that'll work."

With that, Mackie strode purposefully down the cold concrete corridor, Nene close behind, new determination on his face as he thought of how the equipment he'd labored on was about to be used.


	5. Chapter 5

_Okay, despite the total lack of reaction to the last chapter, here's chapter 5. Once again, if you're reading this (and I know there are hits; I checked the stats) please, please take just a moment to review. That's really the only gratification any of us gets for the work we do on these stories and, as I said once before, feedback is the one most important tool a writer has for improvement. Thanks for reading this and hope you enjoy._

Nene roared through the night on the high-performance crotch-rocket Mackie had loaned her, long-coat fluttering in the breeze behind her. Across her back was slung a wakazashi that appeared ancient but was not. Down the length of it's blade, kanji spelled out the name 'Muramasa', a blade of Japanese legend, and also the name Sylia had whimsically given one of her hardsuit's laser-edged swords. And this blade was indeed that same sword, re-forged by Mackie into traditional form, but retaining all of it's technological deadliness.

Granted, without the hardsuit's power system, running only on the micro-miniaturized power cells concealed in it's pommel, it's operational time was somewhat limited. But Nene thought it would suit her purposes just fine.

In addition, she carried a laser-edged, poly-ceramic combat knife tucked into her boot, and, in a shoulder holster, a replica of the hand canon Dr. Raven had presented to Priss on that fateful day, lovingly recreated by Mackie. All in all, she felt as ready to do what needed to be done as she ever thought she would be.

As she'd predicted, once she entered the Canyons, it hadn't been hard to locate The Asshole. After a couple of 'misunderstandings' that she quickly and painfully cleared up, she was able to get the directions she needed, and proceeded there with all haste.

Once in sight of the place, she parked the bike a safe distance away, setting it's alarm and anti-theft systems to aggressive mode. What that meant for anyone who tried to steal or tamper with it she wasn't sure, but Mackie's grin as he'd mentioned it to her had been positively evil, leading her to believe that it was a bit harsher than the law would normally have allowed. She hoped so in this neighborhood.

As she strode toward the place, it struck her that the name was an apt one. The hand painted sign, proclaiming this "The Asshole of the World" hung crookedly on the side of what was left of an old brownstone building, and yawning below it was indeed what looked like the world's asshole. A gaping, roughly circular hole about three meters in diameter in the pavement was apparently the entrance, with a sturdy metallic spiral stairwell running down into the blackness, out of which raucous, ear-hurtingly loud retro-techno and industrial music blared.

No doorman or bouncer guarded the stairwell. Apparently, anyone who was brave or stupid enough was welcome to enter, with their own prowess being the only guarantee that they'd ever exit. With a sigh, Nene slowly descended the stairwell, leaving the crow behind to perch high up on the crown of a ruined building nearby.

As she climbed down, the blackness slowly lightened, but not by much. Most of the patrons, she guessed, would be able to function just fine in the lowlight environment, and it gave them an advantage over those who couldn't. Fortunately for her, it seemed that her newfound abilities included better night vision as well. Her eyes quickly adjusted and she was soon able to see as well as she would have under the light of a full moon.

Looking around her as she reached the base of the stairs, she saw that The Asshole encompassed a fairly large space. It appeared that the main chamber had been a part of the city's sewers at one time, and had been enlarged by knocking down retaining walls and connecting with the basements of several nearby buildings. The whole thing had to be less than structurally sound, but she was sure that that probably just made it more popular with the kind of patrons that it attracted. And besides, to guess from what Takashi had said, it must have remained standing for years now, so maybe it wasn't as rickety as it seemed. Either way, it didn't really matter to Nene.

Scattered about the floor were improvised tables and chairs, obviously made of whatever had been readily available, and over to the left was what passed for a bar. Straight ahead, adjoining the far wall, was a sunken area, maybe a meter lower than the rest of the floor, which apparently served as a dance floor and mosh pit. As she watched, bodies, both fleshy and otherwise, gyrated and collided with each other to the hammering beat of the music, and occasionally came sailing out to land, some more messily than others, among or on top of the bar's other patrons. The latter almost always instigated swift and bloody violence, she noticed, and it occurred to her that the bar's clientele must have an awfully high turnover rate.

For a moment, she just stood at the bottom of the stairs, shocked by what she saw. True, she'd been expecting the worst, but nothing she'd seen in her former life had in any way prepared her for a place like this. A tiny lance of terror briefly pierced her heart, and she found herself thinking, 'My God, what am I doing here?' But then she remembered why she was there, and a cold surge of rage blew the terror away like a morning fog. She'd already been raped, tortured, and murdered, she thought. What could this place offer that was worse than that?

Resolute once more, she strode forward, ignoring the looks, curious and otherwise, that she drew as she passed. She knew that, even dressed as she was and painted in her harlequin's mask, she didn't look nearly rough enough for a place like this. And since there were only two distinctions for patrons in establishments like this one, predator and prey, she knew that it was probably only a matter of time before someone or something decided to put her to the test. She wasn't wrong.

As she walked, looking around carefully for any of four familiar faces, she was stopped short by a hard, metallic hand on her bicep. Without even turning, she said in a voice loud enough to be heard over the music, "One chance. The hand. Take it off before I do it for you."

She heard a metallic growl in response, and felt the hand begin to tighten on her arm. In one fluid motion, she whipped the laser-edged combat knife from her boot with her left hand, pressed the activating stud on the handle, and twisted sharply to the right, slashing cleanly through the wrist just above offending hand. Flipping the knife over on the follow-through, she brought it back on a reverse trajectory, back-handed, at throat level. She was gratified to feel resistance as the blade connected with something, and was further rewarded by a strangled gurgle as the hand's former owner staggered back from her and dropped to his knees before pitching forward onto his face. A pool of reddish liquid, possibly blood and possibly not, rapidly formed under and around him. Nene was reasonably sure he wouldn't be grabbing anyone else any time soon.

Without missing a step or looking back, she deactivated the blade and slipped it back into her boot, continuing on forward as if nothing had happened. It struck her then that she'd almost certainly killed someone in cold blood, someone whose face she'd never even seen. Somewhere inside of her, some part of her recoiled in horror. But the overwhelming majority of her, the part that burned and seethed for vengeance, saw it as simply his own damn fault. If he hadn't been so eager to victimize her as she'd already been victimized once before, he'd still be alive. And now, who knew how many of his potential future victims had been spared. In the end, this part of her won out, and the other small part was silent, perhaps putting to rest the last remnants of the old Nene Romanova.

After this, she noticed that she got slightly more respect and a bit wider berth from the other patrons. Apparently she'd made the impression she needed to, and there'd be no more need for displays of that sort. At least not until she'd found one of those she sought.

As it turned out, that didn't take very long at all. Looking about her, she soon spied, sitting at a dark corner table, a familiar chrome-plated face. Her optic slit glowed a sickly green as she slowly caressed the half-naked girl sitting at her side, a spiked collar around her neck connected to a leash that dangled carelessly from Delilah's hand.

Nene's eyes narrowed, and her mouth became a hard line as she approached the table, and she felt her heartbeat hammering in her chest in anticipation of what was to come. Delilah cocked her head slightly as she came near, and her optic slit flared briefly in surprise as Nene hopped to the table top and sat cross-legged in front of her.

Dropping the girl's leash, Delilah said, perplexed and annoyed, "What the-!" but was cut off as Nene raised a finger to her face, and said, "Let me know if this sounds familiar, would you? And then tell me- who am I?" And then, adopting an expression of agony, she screamed, "Oh, God, please, no! Please stop! Please! Why are you doing this? Oh God!" Stopping as abruptly as she'd started, Nene leaned in close toward Delilah and, grinning humorlessly, said, "Well, Delilah?"

Nene had the impression then that if Delilah had still possessed eyes, they would have widened in shock if not necessarily recognition. "Holy shit!" Delilah exclaimed, surging to her feet and knocking the table over in the process. But as it fell, Nene pushed off from her cross-legged position, and, executing a perfect back flip, landed on her feet as if nothing had occurred. Her gaze on fire with smoldering hatred, Nene slowly advanced upon Delilah, and said mockingly, "Well? I asked you a question, didn't I Delilah? Got an answer yet? Ten seconds, Delilah, or the prize goes to somebody else."

Angry now, Delilah stood her ground, and said, "Answer? Yeah, I got an answer for you, you crazy little bitch. The answer is- you're friggin' dead!"

As she said this, an all-too-familiar appendage poked it's clawed head up from below, and as she flexed her fists, two curved, humming blades, thirty centimeters in length, snapped from the sides of her forearms like a rooster's spurs. Crouching into a fighting stance, the metallic tentacle drawn up near her shoulder like a scorpion's tail, Delilah looked back at Nene and hissed, "Bring it on, little girl!"

Nene shook her head as she slowly closed the distance between them and said, "Oh, I'm sorry! Judges? Well, there you have it, I'm afraid. You only get partial credit for that answer, Delilah. I am 'friggin' dead', but you missed the most important part. You're one of the people who murdered me." And in a growl of barely controlled rage, Nene added, "Care to guess what the consolation prize is?"

With an ululating roar, Delilah charged, swinging one of her vibro-spurs in an arc that would have slashed deep into Nene's chest if she'd still been standing there. But by the time Delilah's blade had passed through the space Nene had been occupying, she was already gone, leaping up and over her, somersaulting and twisting in mid air to deliver a jarringly powerful kick to the base of Delilah's skull as she passed overhead. While not enough to actually harm her, the kick knocked Delilah off balance, and she staggered forward, crashing into an adjacent table and falling to the floor. For her part, Nene used the impact of her kick to drive herself into another back flip and then landed lightly on her feet, again facing Delilah.

"Well, that didn't work worth a shit, now did it?" She chided. "Care to try again?"

Regaining her feet, Delilah growled, and said, "Sure. Why not?" And, pointing an index finger at Nene, there was a loud crack. Nene felt the stinging impact of something small and very fast, and, as blood blossomed from her abdomen, realized that she'd been shot. A damned cyber-gun. Small caliber. One shot. Purely a sucker-punch kind of weapon. It figured.

As Nene staggered back a step from the impact, Delilah charged up and grabbed her by the throat, slamming her hard against the wall. Nene whuffed as the breath was knocked from her, and Delilah, bringing her featureless face close said, "Well, this has been really entertaining, I must say. But I've had about all the fun I can handle for one night, I think."

Smiling maliciously, Nene said, "Oh, I don't think so Delilah. 'I'm about to totally redefine pleasure and pain for you.' That one ring a bell?"

Shocked, Delilah pulled her face back, and, incredulous, said, "You! But there's no way! It can't be you! We killed you!"

Still smiling, a thin trickle of blood making it's way down the corner of her mouth, Nene said, "Well, ladies and gentlemen, she finally got it! I don't know about you, but I think she deserves the grand prize!"

With that, Nene again reached down to snag the combat knife from her boot and, activating it on the fly, rammed it home to the hilt in Delilah's armored mid-section. Satisfyingly red blood immediately poured down over Nene's hands, and there was a reverberating scream from Delilah as she staggered back, dropping Nene. For her part, Nene ripped the knife from Delilah's gut viciously as she retreated, causing more damage and more bleeding.

Partially regaining her equilibrium, Delilah went back on the offensive, swinging at Nene with her humming blades. But, unlike a boomer, pain, exhaustion and blood loss all affected Delilah, if not to the same extent as it would have an unaugmented human being. Her swings were slower and weaker than they had been, and carried a sense of desperation behind them. Nene sidestepped or parried all of Delilah's strikes with relative ease, and pressed back at Delilah with skillful swings and jabs from her combat knife. Eventually, she forced her around and back, until she was cornered against the same wall that she'd slammed Nene into. And then Nene got serious.

With a growl, she bypassed Delilah's guard and slashed her chest deeply, the laser-edged blade slicing cleanly through the metal and ceramic composite breastplate grafted to Delilah's skin and biting into the soft tissues underneath. Again Delilah screamed, and Nene pressed her advantage, working inside and around her weakening guard to cut her half a dozen times. Finally, Delilah could take no more, and dropped to her knees, no longer able even to keep her arms up in a pretense of defense. But she did have one weapon left.

Snaking up from below, the barbed metallic horror that was her cyber-tentacle suddenly shot up, aiming to impale Nene through her pelvic region and tear on up into the soft tissues of her abdomen. But as it's clawed tip neared her most sensitive areas, Nene's off hand darted down and caught it, stopping it dead. Cocking her head slightly, Nene's eyes narrowed in loathing, and, dropping the combat knife, she grasped the tentacle with both hands. Placing her boot firmly on Delilah's pelvis, she yanked with all her might, feeling herself tap into some previously unused reservoir of strength as she did so. With a wet tearing sound and a fresh gush of blood, the tentacle came loose and writhed briefly in Nene's hands before she threw it to the floor in disgust. Delilah gave only a weak, metallic whimper at the loss of her extraneous member, apparently too far gone for anything stronger.

Bending close, Nene recovered the combat knife, and said, "Well, that was refreshing. But I think I've broken you, Delilah. I guess you just weren't up to servicing a girl of my caliber." With that, Nene rammed the blade into Delilah's Nether regions, eliciting at least one more scream of agony, and then, grasping the hilt with both hands, she pulled upward savagely. Again there was a wet tearing sound and a final moan from Delilah, and her green, glowing optical slit slowly went dark. Nene's shoulders slumped in an exhaustion that was far more emotional than physical, and, recovering the combat knife, she wiped it off on Delilah's skirt and then slipped it back into her boot.

Reaching into an inside pocket of the long coat, she pulled out another little toy she'd borrowed from Mackie, a low-output laser stylus similar to the one built into her old suit. Again following something that passed for instinct, she quickly scorched out the stylized outline of a crow on the floor around Delilah's prostrate form. Then, in a flourish, she added the words 'Knight' and 'Sabers' on the left and right wings respectively. Satisfied now, and weary beyond words, she turned to face the stairs and slowly strode toward them, the other patrons now giving her a wide berth.

She trudged up the stairs slowly, and then made her way to her borrowed bike, barely remembering to deactivate the anti-theft system before mounting. Tired in body and spirit, but uplifted in a way she couldn't quite define, she hopped on the bike and zoomed back toward Raven's Garage. She arrived just as the sun was beginning to creep up over most of Mega Tokyo, but the Canyons remained in perpetual darkness.


	6. Chapter 6

_Okay, decided to put this one up a little quicker; I know that people are reading this so I figured there's no reason to keep them waiting. Again, thanks to those of you who reviewed and hope to hear more from you soon._

Leon looked up from the reams of paperwork scattered across his desk and glanced at the old fashioned analog wall clock above the door. Almost ten A.M., and he hadn't slept since three. He sighed, silently cursing the chief once more as he reexamined yet another fellow officer's witness statement from the Kurasawa packet. At the rate he was going, with his 'reduced staff', consisting of just him due to the holiday schedule, he figured it would take him a couple of days to wrap up this paperwork nightmare. 'Damn that bastard!' He thought once more, reaffirming the new chief's special place in his heart.

As these black thoughts crossed his mind, he heard the door opening, and fearing the worst, looked up again. Luckily, it wasn't the chief, and he sighed in relief as he recognized Takashi. Like him, she was still dressed in the same clothes she had been a few hours ago, and, under the cast-iron exterior she always projected, he noted just a hint of fatigue.

"Busy?" She asked irreverently.

Leon rolled his eyes, and said, "Oh, no, I was just redecorating my office, and I thought all these loose papers looked great on my desk."

"Huh!" She said. "Maybe you should get Wong to help you out then. I think interior decorating might be more up his lane than yours."

Leon snorted, and said, "Yeah, well, he, unlike the two of us, was smart enough to take Christmas leave this year. I think the bastard's in Tahiti or maybe Hawaii about now. He said he'd send a post card, but I haven't heard a damn thing from him. Probably found himself a holiday romance or something, the sly dog."

Ami shook her head and said, "Lucky son of a bitch. 'Course, he's not the only one on vacation now. I handed my request in to Chief this morning, right after our little talk. He just loved that."

Leon sighed, and said, "Well, that's good, I guess. So what's up Ami? I don't guess this is a social call."

"No," she said slowly, "It's not. I found out something interesting a few minutes ago, Leon, and I figured you'd want to know."

Leon frowned, and said, "Ok, what?"

"Delilah got iced this morning," She said deadpan.

Standing abruptly, Leon said, "Say what! How the hell do you know that!"

"I've still got a few friends in low places," she said. "I called one of them up this morning after Chief and I had our little talk. I figured I'd get some up-to-the-minute intel before we thought about doing anything crazy, and he had a wild story to tell me. Care to make any guesses?"

Leon shook his head, and said, "Naw, just give it to me. Somehow I don't think I'm gonna like this."

"You're probably right," she agreed. "Seems my buddy was having a little night out last night, watching the freak-show down at the Asshole. Somewhere around four-thirty, five o'clock, somebody new came in. Now, that's not so unusual; there's always fresh meat down there. But this one caught a whole lot of eyes. She just didn't fit in with the crowd, looked way too soft to be hanging out down there, if you know what I mean."

"Ah, shit." Leon said slowly. "Let me guess. Redhead? About five-foot-nothing and disgustingly cute?"

Ami nodded, and said, "On the money McNichol. Oh, he said she was dressed kind of rough. Black fatigue pants, leather long coat, army boots, and one of those smiley face t-shirts with a bullet hole between the eyes. Of course, he said that bullet hole looked like a real hole with real blood around it, but he could've been tripping a little. Oh, yeah, and he said she was wearing some kind of funky face paint, all white with black eyes and lips. Like a clown or a mime or something."

"Huh!" Leon said. "And I'll just bet those clothes-"

"Match what was taken from those dumb-ass punks last night," Ami finished for him. "Two for two, Leon."

"Ok," he said, "And then?"

"Well, The Asshole's the kind of place where you're either at the top of the food chain, or at the bottom. There's no in-between. So naturally some prick had to try her. She slit his throat with some kind of energized combat knife before he could even blink, and then she walked away as if nothing had happened while this guy bled out behind her."

"Goddamn!" Leon said. "And you still think this thing's programmed to think it's Nene?"

Ami shrugged, and said, "Who knows? That's neither here nor there. But after she wasted this guy, she found Delilah sitting down with one of her pets, the two-legged variety, mind you, and all hell broke loose after that. My buddy said it looked like she was playing with Delilah, teasing her and shit while she danced around her and sliced her to ribbons with that damned knife. In fact, he said that he was pretty sure Delilah shot her once, but it didn't even seem to faze her. She just came back and ripped her to shreds. Almost literally, I guess. Opened her up like a side of beef from crotch to chin, from what my source said."

"Jesus," Leon said. "She's a friggin' assassinoid, then. Maybe a 33 series? One of the custom jobs without the internal weaponry?"

Ami shook her head, and said, "I don't know man. If so, she's pretty messed up. You see, there was one other thing my buddy told me."

"Well, shit, Ami! Let's hear it."

With a vaguely troubled expression, she said, "After she waxed Delilah, she used a laser stylus to burn something into the floor. There was the outline of a big bird around Delilah's corpse, but on the wings there were also the words-"

"Knight Sabers," Leon said in a hoarse whisper.

Ami nodded slowly, and said, "Three for three, McNichol. You're batting a thousand today."

"Holy shit, Takashi, you do realize what this means, right?" he said in a stunned tone.

She nodded again, and said, "Yeah, it means that somebody out there who knows way too much about the Sabers got his hands on this boomer, kit-bashed it to his specs, and set it loose on the assholes who killed them. You still think the Stingray kid could be our guy?"

Leon shook his head, and said, "I don't know who the hell else it could be. Not only does it look like his sister was one of the Sabers, but the kid's a mechanical genius to boot. I found that out during the initial investigation. Five will get you ten that he helped maintain if not build equipment for the Sabers, and everything they had was way more advanced than any kind of tech you'll find in old androids." Sighing, Leon continued. "He sure as hell has the motive, he probably has the means, and he's had nothing but opportunity for the last year. What's that say to you, Ami?"

"It says, Kurasawa packet or no, we need to talk to that kid. ASAP."

Leon sighed, and said, "Yeah, that's what it says to me too. Guess I'll just have to do with even less sleep tonight, because I sure as hell can't let Kurasawa's packet just ride."

Ami nodded, and said, "No, and on top of that, we're going to have to keep a low profile on this. Chief and I had a little heart-to-heart earlier, and in his own ballsless, non-confrontational way, he let me know that this case is strictly hands off. Even the maglev incident last night has been swept under the rug, Leon. They wrapped it up with some bullshit story about the perp being a frost-fire addict, and totally blew off the ADP uniform and the resemblance to Romanova." She sighed, and said, "I don't know what the echelons-beyond-reality said to him, but he was rattled. More so than usual. Obviously this thing is still a hot potato for somebody, though."

"Y'know, Ami," he said tiredly, "At this point, I really don't give a shit anymore. I'm fed up to my ass with all this politically motivated bullshit, and all I want now is the truth. I want to know why a fellow officer, a woman I cared about a lot, and three other good people died that night. I want to know not only who did it, but who ordered it. And then I want that bastard to pay."

"Holy shit," Ami said incredulously. "So it's true, then."

Frowning, Leon said, "What's true? What the hell are you talking about, Takashi?"

She shook her head, and said, "You were in love with the Asagiri girl! I'd heard rumors about that, but I didn't believe it. Not about you. Lust, maybe, but love?"

Irritated, Leon said, "Oh, Christ, Takashi, just drop it, ok? There was never really anything between Priss and me, and now obviously there never will be. Feelings are just a goddamned liability on this job anyway."

Putting a reassuring hand on Leon's arm, Ami said, "Sometimes I feel the same way Leon. But you were right before. All that shit's not important right now. The truth is."

On the top floor of an old office building located on the border of Timex City and the Outer District, largely intact on the outside, and completely rebuilt and remodeled on the inside, sat the nominal head of the Hong Triad. He had a name, but it was only important to those with whom he had business dealings, and to his masters. Those who didn't know the truth.

Everyone beneath him knew the truth, and thus knew how unimportant he really was. They all knew that the real power behind the Hong Triad for most of the last year had been the leader's trusted lieutenant and enforcer, the creature most often known simply as The Tin Man. But none of them would have ever admitted that, even to each other.

As was his wont, The Tin Man stood back in the shadows, lurking behind his supposed master as he managed Hong's daily affairs. Thus, The Tin Man was privy to all of the Hong Triad's dealings, and was able to make whatever 'suggestions' he liked.

He wasn't really very surprised to learn that his former associate Delilah was dead. With her proclivities, it had always been just a matter of time, and he'd distanced himself from her and most of his other old confederates months ago. After certain… changes he'd undergone, and was still undergoing, he'd had little use for them. But the circumstances of her death were intriguing, particularly the killer's little artistic flourish at the end.

'So there's still someone out there using the Knight Sabers' name,' he thought, smiling to himself and lazily flipping a coin in the air. 'How interesting. And now that Delilah's out of the way, she'll be looking for the others, I imagine. Eventually, I suppose, she might even come looking for me. Assuming she lives that long, of course.'

As he contemplated this unexpected development, weighing it's potential impact on his future plans, he suddenly caught the coin in mid-toss, and clenched it in his fist. Still smiling, he thought, 'Either way, this should prove to be amusing.'

Opening his hand, he dropped the now-mangled coin to the floor, and thought wryly, 'I seriously doubt the poor dear understands just what she's dealing with.'

As Mackie slept in an adjacent room, finally catching a cat-nap after a night awake and a morning spent waiting and praying for Nene's safe return, Nene took the opportunity to conduct a little light exercise.

She supposed she should be tired in light of the morning's activities, but she wasn't. Instead, she was restless and impatient, and seriously considered just going back to the Outer District to continue her hunt. Apparently, sleep wasn't something she needed anymore. Vengeance took priority.

But she wasn't stupid, and realized that her chances of tracking any of her quarry down in the daytime were slim indeed. Fortunately, though, daytime in the Canyons was only about six hours long, and there were enough preparations that needed to be made to easily keep her occupied for that long.

At the moment, dressed in one of Sylia's familiar measuring suits, she was engaged in a pitched battle with an amorphous holographic blob, much as she had been only a few days before her young life had been both shattered and ended.

During that last session, she'd been slain _in virtuo_ almost immediately, one of the holo-blob's tentacles piercing her forehead embarrassingly. And that had been working at only level five on Sylia's scaled chart of humiliation. It was a performance that was not to be repeated.

Today, she'd started at level eight, the highest level she'd ever seen any of her teammates clear, and she'd programmed the computer to escalate automatically every time she beat her opponent. At the moment, she was working on level ten.

The crow, perched on the computer console above, watched her curiously through the observation windows as she dodged, spun, turned, sidestepped, somersaulted, cart wheeled, and struck out with feet and fists. Time and again, the holo-opponent, growing larger, more complex, faster and more aggressive with each jump in level, missed her by just a hair's breadth with it's whipping, jabbing pseudo-pods. And, time and again, her strikes found their mark.

How long this continued, she didn't know. She found herself in a trance-like state, not thinking, not anticipating, just reacting and counter-striking, each engagement a world unto itself. But finally, the holo-blob ceased it's attacks and hung motionless, blinking from red to blue in mid-air.

As she came out of her Zen-like fighting state, Nene was vaguely amazed. She'd beaten it! Not just on one level, but completely! It had hit level fifteen, the highest level Sylia had ever thought she'd need to program, and now there was no further to go. Nene shook her head and exited the testing chamber, heading for the control room.

As she entered and seated herself at the console, the crow cawed softly and hopped to her shoulder. Studying the summary reports, taken both from the combat trial she'd just finished and from the other tests she'd completed earlier, she whistled softly. According to the computer, her reflexes had almost doubled, her strength had nearly quadrupled, and her endurance was off the chart. Not only that, but her measurements and body composition had changed drastically. She was sporting far more lean muscle and far less fat than ever before.

Under any other circumstances she would have been ecstatic. As it was, she just sighed and thought, 'So now I know the secret to ultimate physical fitness. To bad it's literally to die for.'

"Been busy, I see," a familiar voice said from behind, startling her.

Turning, she said, "Well, good afternoon, sleepy-head. And yeah, I guess you could say I've been busy. I just wasn't very sleepy this morning."

Looking over her shoulder, the opposite from the one where the crow perched, Mackie's eye widened. "I guess you weren't," he said in a tone of mild amazement. "These numbers are kind of hard to believe, Nene."

"Well, you can check the equipment if you want," she said, and then in a teasing voice, "Or you could just spar with me for a couple of rounds."

Mackie shook his head, smiling, and said, "No, I think I'll pass on that." And then, moving in close to nuzzle her ear, he said in a husky tone, "Unless you'd like to spar somewhere besides the testing room, that is."

Nene smiled in return, feeling the blackness enveloping her soul recede just a little bit, and turning her head just enough to brush her lips to his said, "Well, I didn't actually say where we had to spar. Or," she continued slyly, "what fighting style we should use."

Mackie's heart beat faster in anticipation, and, placing his good hand lightly on her cheek, he kissed her deeply. She responded strongly, twisting around in the chair and reaching up to caress the back of his neck with her right hand. The crow, unsettled by her sudden movement, hopped down to the console, squawking chidingly.

But neither of them really noticed much besides each other at that point. Nene stood slowly, lips still pressed to Mackie's, and turned slowly into his embrace. They parted briefly then, staring into each other's eyes for a moment, and, bending slightly, Mackie lifted her into his arms. She giggled, sounding so much like her old self that Mackie's heart almost cracked, and they kissed again. Moving slowly and carefully, Mackie carried her toward the small living area he maintained adjoining his workshop. It wasn't much, he knew, but for them, for now, it would have to do.

Lying contentedly side by side, Nene and Mackie just stared up at the water-stained concrete ceiling for a while, lost in their own thoughts. Finally, in a subdued tone, Nene said, "You know this can't last much longer, right?"

Mackie sighed regretfully, and said, "I know, Nene. I know that once you've finished what you came here to do, you'll- go."

She nodded slowly, and said, "Probably we shouldn't be doing this at all. It's just not fair to you."

Mackie shook his head emphatically, and said, "No, Nene, I don't see it that way at all. For me, this has been a chance I never thought I'd have. A chance for things to be the way they should have been, even if only for a little while." He stopped, frowning in thought, and then said, "We've both been through so much, I think we deserve any little bit of happiness we can grab, no matter how brief. And Nene?"

Looking into his eyes, suddenly fascinated by them and by him, she said, "Hmm?"

"I think I've figured something else out too. People may not be immortal, but I think love is. And whatever else happens, to either of us, I'll always love you. And them. And nothing can ever change that."

A tear ran down Nene's cheek as Mackie's words pierced her heart, and, snuggling close, she said, "I love you too, Mackie. And if we'd had the chance, I think we'd have made a life together eventually. As it is, I-"

"Shh." He said, this time placing his finger gently to her lips. "Don't think about what might've been, Nene. Just enjoy what we have for as long as it lasts. It'll be enough. It has to be."

She sighed, and, lightening the mood a little, said, "At least you sound better, Mackie. I really wasn't sure about you last night."

He laughed quietly, and said, "Yeah, you've got a point there. I didn't realize just how far down I'd crawled into self-pity until you woke me up. I guess you could say you've healed me in some way, Nene."

She smiled, and said, "Maybe that's part of the reason I'm here, then. I'd like to think so. That maybe not everything I was sent here to do is dark and violent." She shuddered as she said this and then continued. "For just a moment last night, I was almost too scared to do what I knew I had to. But then it all came back to me, and pure rage just carried me through." Shaking her head, she said, "I never thought that was the kind of person I was, Mackie. Sure, Priss was like that, but I never really understood her until now. Before, I was just sleepwalking through life. I didn't have a clue. But, like it did for her years ago, pain woke me up."

"Uh, Nene?" Mackie said, a little concerned and just a bit frightened.

Smiling again, a little sadly now, she said, "It's ok, Mackie. It's just that I'm a little mixed up inside, I guess. There's still just a little bit of the old me in there, scared of her own shadow, horrified at the sight of blood, and squeamish about doing the kind of things that need to be done here. But the other part of me, the larger part by far…"

"You've grown up, Nene," Mackie said matter-of-factly. "We both have. It wasn't like we were given a lot of choice in the matter, after all."

"That's part of it, I suppose," Nene agreed. "But nobody should ever have their childhood just smashed the way we did. Their innocence just ripped away. I think maybe that's one of the biggest reasons I'm here, Mackie. Just the colossal unfairness of it all."

Mackie nodded slowly, and said, "I guess that makes as much sense as anything else." Then, clapping his hands theatrically, he said, "So! As much as I'd like to just lay here with you all day, I'm guessing there are some things we need to get done before you head out tonight."

Sighing, she said, "Unfortunately. And I'm sure that no matter how fast we work, _It_ won't be ready by then."

Mackie shook his head, and said, "No, I don't think so. We still haven't converted over the data you got this morning, and I'm sure there are some tweaks you'll want to put on the software. On my end, there's still a lot of work to do on the hardware side. Most of the components are there, but I've got to refit the whole damn thing for you, and then there's all that cosmetic stuff-!"

Nene shrugged, and said, "Well, like I told you last night, a lot of things just seem to come to me now. And what I sketched out for you on the cad-cam screen was just, well, right somehow. That's the way it's got to look. I can't explain it any better than that."

Smiling, Mackie said, "Somehow, I didn't think you'd be able to. But it doesn't matter. One more good night's work should do it."

Turning, Nene kissed Mackie on the cheek, something that in it's chaste innocence inflamed him all the more powerfully, and said seriously, "Thank you, Mackie. Without your help, I don't think I could do this."

He sighed, and said, "Yeah, too successful for my own good. The story of my life."

She giggled, and said, "Alright, smart-ass. So in lieu of _It,_ what else have you got for me to play with tonight?"

Rubbing his hands together and grinning evilly, he said, "Oh, I think we can find a couple of things to add to last night's inventory…"


	7. Chapter 7

_Well, here's chapter 7. Again, please take a minute out of your busy schedule to review this if you're reading. I enjoy your comments and they're the mechanism by which I improve my skills. Thanks._

It was late afternoon when the road chaser rolled up to the curb adjacent LADYS633 and stopped. Taking in the boarded up exterior of the shop level, and the generally neglected look of the place as a whole, Takashi frowned and said, "You sure this is the place, Leon?"

He nodded, and said, "Yeah, I'm sure. I spent enough time here when the investigation was still on."

"Well," she said, "If so, the kid's sure not putting much into maintenance, is he?"

Leon shrugged, and said, "He really wouldn't have to. I'm pretty sure that the lingerie shop was just a front. Oh, I'm sure it made money, but from what little I could dig up, it looks like his sister had investments spread all over hell and gone. Even if he hasn't done a damn thing but leave it to the brokers and live off the dividends, I'm pretty sure he's not hurting."

"Huh!" Ami said. "I guess that figures. You'd need a hell of a lot of capital to start up and run something like the Knight Sabers. Seemed like they were always popping up with new toys."

Pulling the road chaser up onto the curb, Leon threw it into park and exited, Takashi following suit. They moved toward the back of the building where the residential entrance was located, Leon in the lead.

At the door, Leon buzzed the intercom, and the screen lit with what was obviously the recorded image of a scowling young man with a partially chromed face and a dull red cyber eye. He said, "I'm not home right now, I've got other shit to do, so leave a message and maybe I'll get back to you if I damn well feel like it. And once you've done that, kindly leave my property." There was a beep then, but Leon had already stabbed the off button in disgust.

"Well," Takashi said, "He's a cheerful one, isn't he?"

Leon sighed, and said, "Yeah, well, you read the file. After what that cyber-bitch did to him, can you blame him?"

"No," Ami said, "I guess I can't. So what now?"

Leon frowned, and said, "You've been asking me that an awful lot lately. Don't you have any ideas?"

Ami shrugged, and said, "Well, I suppose we could go in anyway. I think it's safe to say that we've already crossed the line on this one as it is."

"Ok," Leon said doggedly, "And just how do we go about that? I suppose you're a master burglar on top of everything else?"

Ami shook her head and said, "Hell no! I'm all thumbs when it comes to shit like that. That's why I used to let Scary Larry handle all the entry stuff back in the day."

"Scary Larry?" Leon said incredulously. "Wasn't he your demo guy? The big bastard with two chromed out cyberarms?"

Ami grinned, and said, "Yeah, that's him. Best damn entry man you ever saw. Doors, walls, battle-ship plate, it didn't matter to Larry. Just meant he had to use a little more explosive, that's all."

Leon rolled his eyes and said, "Forget I asked. I think we can rule out B & E here, then. Besides, I've got another idea."

"Ok, McNichol," Ami said, "what've you got?"

"Raven's Garage. I just remembered something important about that damn place."

Puzzled, Ami said, "And that would be?"

"The old geezer left it to the Stingray kid in his will. To his sister, actually, but it devolved to him. All things considered, it was such a minor side-note to everything else that I friggin' forgot about it."

"Leon," Ami said carefully, "We were just there last night, and the place looked dead as a doornail. There wasn't even anywhere where the kid could've been hiding."

"Shit, Takashi, I'm not stupid," Leon said. "But think about this. Why the hell were the Knight Sabers hanging around down there on Christmas anyway? And the Stingrays were in his will, for Christ's sake. So they all had to be pretty thick with the old guy, right?"

Ami nodded and, still bewildered said, "Sure, I guess. So?"

"So," Leon said, "You read the old man's background. You tell me."

Ami's eyes widened suddenly, and she said, "Son of a bitch! Yeah, he used to be some kind of big name scientist! But back in the early '20's, he changed his name and dropped out! Nobody had heard anything about him for years until all this shit happened. And the shit he used to work on-"

"Cybernetics, man amplifying devices, artificial intelligence, mil-spec weaponry, you name it," Leon finished.

"Right," Ami agreed. "So that damn garage was probably a maintenance facility of some kind for the Sabers."

Leon nodded, and said, "Stands to reason. But you tell me. Did you see anything in there last night that looked like it'd ever been used to service powered armor or other mecha?"

Ami shook her head and said, "Sure as hell not." And then, comprehension again dawning on her, she said, "Not above ground anyway!"

"Yeah," Leon said, "That's just about what I was thinking. If I was gonna put together an operation like theirs, I'd bury all the important shit and put up something inconspicuous on top."

Looking back at LADYS633, Ami said, "Like a lingerie shop?"

Leon nodded, and said, "Yeah, that's possible too. Who knows what the hell's under this place? But right now I'm thinking of the garage. Somebody was there last night, at least for a little while."

Ami frowned and said, "Well, yeah, but that could've been anybody. All we saw was an old thermal print after all."

Looking at Ami over his mirrored shades, Leon said, "You still believe in coincidences, Takashi?"

She shrugged and said, "Sometimes. But not usually."

"Same here," Leon said. "And in this case, not at all. Something's going on down at that garage. I could feel it last night."

Ami snorted and said, "You getting superstitious in your old age, McNichol?"

Leon shook his head and said, "No. But I've been a cop long enough to trust a hinky feeling when I get it and so have you."

Takashi nodded slowly and said, "Maybe you've got a point, Leon. There was something not quite right down there last night."

"Exactly," Leon said. "And the longer we fart around here, the worse our chances are for finding out what."

Darkness came early in the Canyons, as it always did. The sheer fifty meter rock walls that blocked the sun's rays both morning and evening ensured that. And as the sun set, life in the Outer District, twisted and perverse as it was, slowly stirred and began to go about it's unwholesome business.

As she had the night before, Nene began her hunt at The Asshole. Tonight, she descended without fear, dressed as before, this time with the crow perched on her shoulder. As she'd thought, The Asshole's clientele remembered her, and gave her ample room as she passed. Looking about, she saw that Delilah's corpse had at least been removed, most likely to the nearest chop-shop for salvage. But the blood stains and her little piece of impromptu art remained, perhaps to be informally enshrined as part of the bar's atmosphere.

Unfortunately, that was all she found as she cast about. Though she circulated throughout the establishment, she failed to find any of the three faces she sought. Frowning, she thought for a moment, and then headed to the bar.

The barkeep was a great, burly, barrel-chested older man with salt-and-pepper black hair and a beard to match, who wore blue jeans and a 'Hell's Angels' leather jacket. Nene wasn't exactly sure who or what the Hell's Angels were, but the jacket itself looked ancient and worn. The man had no obvious cyberware or other enhancements, but there was something about him that made Nene think he might not need them. Perhaps it was his eyes, gray and hard like granite, or maybe the craggy ruggedness of his features, or maybe just those rock-hard biceps that were each as big as both her legs put together. Whatever the case, he exuded an almost elemental air of stoutness that all but told anyone but a fool that he wasn't to be trifled with.

Sidling up to the bar, Nene said, "Excuse me! Got a question!"

The bartender's head turned ponderously in her direction and in a voice like rolling marble he said, "A question? Well, we usually sell drinks around here, not answers."

Nene sighed, and decided to employ a weapon all her own rather than one of those she'd borrowed from Mackie. Sighing loudly, she put her head in her hands and did her best to look crushed. "Gosh," she said in a disillusioned tone, "And here I was hoping you'd be able to help me."

The bartender stopped wiping the counter with the dirty rag in his hand, and leaned a little closer. In his craggy voice, he said, "I did say usually. What do you want to know, little lady?"

Nene brightened immediately, aiming a radiant smile at the barkeep, and said, "Well, I'm looking for some people, actually-"

"Huh!" The barkeep interrupted. "Like you were looking for Delilah last night?"

Nene sighed again, this time for real, and said, "As a matter of a fact, yes. I'm looking for some friends of hers."

Frowning, the bartender said, "Tell you what, little lady. You tell me what this is about, and I might be able to help you. If not, then all I got for sale is drinks."

Looking down at the counter, Nene considered for a moment and then, in a hoarse whisper said, "They killed my friends. They maimed my- my boyfriend. And they raped and tortured me. They killed me too, I guess you could say. I just happen to still be walking around. And they got away with it scott-free." And then, looking up at the barkeep, she rasped, "That good enough for you?"

The bartender was silent for a moment, his stony face giving away nothing, and then he said, "Business is a little slow in here tonight, missy. Big pit fight competition going on a few blocks west of here. Those usually draw all kinds of folks, same crowd old Delilah ran with mostly. Could be just about anybody down there, I guess. So you care for a drink, or what?"

Nene smiled, gratified to find even a ray of kindness in a place like this and said, "Sorry, I'm in kind of a hurry." And, sliding a large note, also borrowed from Mackie, over the counter, she said, "Here's a tip for your trouble, though."

The barkeep made no move to take the proffered note, and said, "That's ok. No trouble. Just try to take care of yourself if you decide to take in the fights. Crowd out there can get even rougher than in here sometimes."

Truly touched now, Nene said earnestly, "Thank you," and then left.

Behind her, the barkeep sighed, and, glancing to an old, tattered photo pinned to the counter out of the patron's sight, picked up his rag and took up wiping where he'd left off. As he watched Nene exit, he glanced again to the photo, a picture of a smiling, blonde-haired girl of perhaps ten. Sighing again, he thought of what might have been if not for the Quake so many years ago.

As she emerged from below into the night-darkened streets above, the crow launched itself from her shoulder, cawing loudly as it took off in the direction the barkeep had indicated. As it flew, Nene followed on foot, leaving the bike behind. With Mackie's anti-theft system running, she had no doubt it would be there when she returned.

Running along in the crow's wake, she ducked into and out of the trash-strewn alleys and, finding a mostly intact fire escape still attached to a building, she rapidly ascended to the roof. Dilapidated as it was, it supported her weight, and she ran along it toward the next. Finding a substantial gap ahead of her, she didn't slow but instead ran all the faster and then leaped with all her might. She felt no fear as she sailed across the chasm between the two ancient buildings, and landed, still running, on the other side.

She proceeded like this for several blocks, never slowing, spanning the gaps as they came, until the crow finally fluttered down to perch on the crumbling edge of a building in front of her, overlooking a dark, dank alley below.

She stopped a few meters short of the edge, and, concentrating, took in a crow's-eye view of the scene below. In the now-familiar wavering black and white, she saw a man and two women strolling down the alley, staggering occasionally and laughing uproariously. The women were unfamiliar, bargain basement ladies of the evening, she guessed by their dress or lack thereof, but Nene recognized the man immediately. He was a light skinned, bald headed Anglo with piercing blue eyes, and he wore only a set of loose-fitting white pants and a pair of sandals. Razz.

Nene waited until they'd passed, letting them get just a little ahead of her. Stepping to the crumbling edge, arms at her sides, she let herself pitch forward toward the pavement below. Her body rotated a full turn as she fell, and she landed on her back in a heap of rubbish with a loud crash.

Razz spun around at the noise, popping both sets of claws as he turned and nearly knocked his two clinging companions to the ground in the process. As he scanned the alleyway, Nene slowly rose from the trash heap and walked toward him. The two girls gasped, and whispered something to each other, the name "Delilah!" being the only part audible to Nene as she approached. Piercing them with her gaze, she said in a dead voice, "Leave. Now. This is a private party. Just him and me."

Cringing, the two girls, likely much tougher than they looked to have survived in this neighborhood, turned and fled. Tough or not, they knew Delilah had been tougher, and she hadn't been able to stand up to the pint-sized, harlequin-faced horror in front of them.

Eyes narrowing, Razz said, "Ok, little girl, I don't know what your game is, but you just messed up a real sweet night for me. You itchin' to put me down like you put down Delilah last night? That it?"

Nene just grinned malevolently and said, "Something like that, Razz."

Cocking his head quizzically, Razz said, "That's the name. Now where'd you get it, since I sure as hell didn't give it to you?"

Stepping closer, and starting to circle slowly, Nene said mockingly, "Oh, no, your buddy Tin Man did. Don't you remember? A year ago tonight? You're the boomer. You've got the eidetic memory. Why don't you tell me?"

Zooming in on her face, ignoring the makeup and modeling only the points of identification, Razz ran a lightening fast search of his memory. It took him only a moment to pull up an image, time-stamped almost exactly a year ago. His eyes widened in momentary disbelief, and then he said, "Oh, this is bullshit! We killed that silly, cutesy little bitch and all her friends. And dead is dead. So what series are you? 23? 33, maybe? And what colossal asshole had the shitty taste to kit-bash you together?"

Nene laughed again, a hollow, sepulchral sound that raised gooseflesh even on the android's hide. "You just don't get it, do you Razz? Dead _isn't_ dead. Not where I'm concerned. Can you say the same?"

Razz snarled, "Enough of this crap!" and slashed out at her viciously. But Nene simply turned her body to the side so that the claw strike missed by several centimeters and smiled at him. He growled and slashed again with similar results.

"Ok," he said, smiling in grudging respect. "Not bad. Now lets get serious, bitch!"

With that, he unleashed a flurry of claw strikes, punches, and kicks, all designed to push Nene back and to the side, toward one of the alley's walls. Again she managed to dodge or sidestep each and every strike, but Razz was frighteningly skilled. Obviously, he'd used the years of his freedom to study and perfect his martial arts skills, going far beyond anything he'd originally been programmed with. Nene quickly found herself on the defensive versus the rogue android, and that wasn't where she wanted to be.

Before he could corner her, Nene disengaged, somersaulting and tumbling back. Reaching over her shoulder with her right hand as she moved, springing with her left, she drew Muramasa from it's sheathe and pressed the activating stud. Performing one final back flip, she landed about four meters from Razz, the glowing, laser-edged blade held in a reversed grip along her right arm.

At the sight of the blade, Razz's eyes widened again, and then narrowed as he said, "Well, isn't that a fancy pig sticker. Sure hope you know how to use it, little girl!"

Spearing him with her gaze, Nene said in a hollow voice, "This is Muramasa, Razz. It belonged to the woman you killed last Christmas. The one whose head you spread all over a wall. I'm sure that if she'd had this then, things would've been a lot different. Since she can't be here tonight, I guess I'll just have to do."

She charged then, as Razz had expected her to. He stood his ground, gauging her every move with his mechanical precision, and noted that while definitely skilled, she was almost certainly not on a par with him. As she reached him, she slashed across with a back-handed strike meant to disembowel. But Razz was prepared for this, and parried, glissading the blow off his claws, and preparing for the immediate return-strike he knew would be coming. He blocked that with his other set of energized claws, deflecting the blade up to create an opening in her guard. Taking advantage of this, he darted in with a powerful left-handed strike that tore deeply into Nene's abdomen.

Blood spouted from the gaping wound, and with a startled grunt, Nene fell back a pace, her left arm clutching her wounded stomach. Pressing his momentary advantage, Razz moved in. Back-handing her blade aside with his left hand, he struck with the right, burying his claws to the knuckles in Nene's ribs, and then jerked them out savagely in a motion that flayed open the left side of her chest.

Blood pumping freely, Nene staggered back against the brick wall behind her and slowly slumped to the ground. Grinning wolfishly, Razz loomed over her, claws still extended menacingly as she leaned against the wall, panting and bleeding, at his feet.

Razz laughed, and said, "So, not a boomer after all, huh? I guess you must be a clone or something, then, but it doesn't really matter now, does it?"

Looking him in the eye, still panting, Nene said weakly, "I guess it doesn't, Razz. You were just too good for me. I never thought an outdated, piece of shit 23C like you could pull it off. You are a 23C, aren't you?"

Frowning, Razz said, "Yeah, but that shit isn't gonna matter either in a second." As he said this, he pulled back his right hand for a killing strike. But before it could fall, Nene's entire demeanor changed. She moved the arm she'd been clutching her torso and abdomen with, revealing smooth, white, unmarked skin where the gaping wounds had been. And as Razz's eyes widened in disbelief, smiling savagely, she said, "Oh, it matters, Razz. It matters a whole hell of a lot!"

With a growl, he struck out at her, the same kind of front punch that had spattered Sylia's skull all over the wall of Raven's Garage. But Nene was already moving, tucking and rolling between Razz's legs. His clawed fist slammed into the wall where she'd been, sinking in so deeply that it was momentarily stuck there. Behind him, Nene rolled to her feet and pirouetted to the right, Muramasa still held in a reversed grip in her hand. She spun all the way around, extending the blade as she turned, so that it's glittering tip bit just a centimeter or two into a particular place at the base of Razz's neck.

Razz collapsed like a rag doll, his body suddenly appearing almost boneless. On his face he wore a shocked expression, frozen there now that the delicate biochips that comprised his neural linkage had been cut. Bending close, Nene said in a scornful tone, "Poor Razz. Just like a little puppet with his strings cut, now. But I know you can hear me in there. I know all kinds of things about boomers like you, Razz." Pulling the long coat open to expose the shiny gold badge still pinned inside, she said, "They teach us those things at the ADP academy. Where the neural linkages are on all the standard models, stuff like that. So you see, it really did matter just what you were." And then, darkly, smiling sweetly, she added, "But what's really important is what you're about to become."

Following the same strange instincts that had carried her along so far, Nene knelt down beside Razz and laid both hands on his face, thumbs over his eyes. Closing her own eyes, she felt a connection form between herself and the paralyzed boomer. From there, it was a simple matter for her, a hacker extraordinaire in her former life, to work her will upon the shrieking consciousness that was Razz.


	8. Chapter 8

_Okay, here's chapter 8. Hope you're all enjoying this and thanks for the feedback. If you haven't reviewed, please take a minute to do so; I'd really appreciate it._

She had little trouble finding the kind of place she was looking for. Chop-shops and boomer recycling parlors were a dime a dozen in the Canyons. It was somewhat more difficult to get Razz inside, but she managed his one-hundred-fifty-plus kilos of androidial weight in a fireman's carry, just as she'd gotten him from the alley to her bike.

Once through the door, she quickly located the proprietor, a short, fat, gray-haired old man with a few odd-looking bits of cosmetic cyberware that might or might not have been indicative of more profound implants. As she approached his sales counter, the limp, naked, freshly maimed boomer on her shoulders, he glanced at her curiously. "Help you with something?" he said.

Settling Razz's sagging form on the counter, she exhaled loudly and said, "Damn, he's a heavy one." And then, smiling wistfully, she said, "Well, I found this poor dilapidated boomer down in the Kanto Dump while I was scrounging around, and I tinkered around with him for a while, but I just can't seem to do anything with him."

The old junk man grunted, and said, "Tinkered, huh? Find anything wrong with 'im?" And, indicating Razz's newly missing arms and genitals, not to mention his mangled face, he added, "Besides the obvious, that is."

Nene nodded slowly, and said, "Yeah, looks like he was in a heck of a fight, all right. And I did find a couple of things." Looking down to hide a smile that had gone from wistful to predatory, she said, "It looks like whoever did this cut his neural linkage, but that can be fixed. No, the real problem is in his AI, I'm afraid."

Frowning, the old man said, "In his AI? Then what good is he?"

Nene shook her head, and said, "I'm not too sure, really. But I did jack in there, and it looks like somebody turned loose a really nasty virus, or maybe some nanites, or maybe even both. Anyway, I think he's still partially aware, but all of his motor areas are screwed up, and the speech processing centers too. He'll probably be able to move again, at least a little, I think, but he'll never have any coordination. And I don't think he'll ever talk again. But!" She paused theatrically, and then continued. "What I did find was that he's had some specialty programming. He's a 23C, and was probably somebody's bodyguard at one time. But it looks like he was somebody's sex toy too. He's got lots of add-on programming for that stuff."

The junk dealer's frown deepened, and, pointing to Razz's missing parts said, "What the hell good is all that? I could slap together a new one for him, but in the condition he's in, why bother?"

Nene's smile widened, the predatory edge barely concealed, and she said, "Oh, but that's the best part. All of the sex programming he's got is homo-oriented, not hetero! And it's all submissive stuff. So, really, you won't have to do much at all. In fact, I'm sure that with the right kind of advertising and a little cosmetic work, you won't have any problem finding him a nice new owner."

The junk dealer grunted again, this time apparently in satisfaction, and said, "Well, that sounds like it may have potential. But this is an odd brand on his back. Deep, too. Doubt I'll ever be able to get that out, and even after he heals, there'll be a scar."

Not bothering to hide the feral nature of her grin anymore and fingering the stylized bird form with the incised 'Knight Sabers' logo seared into Razz's back, Nene said, "Yeah, kind of odd alright."

"So will you take ten thousand for him?" the old man asked, naming a price far below what Razz was worth, even as scrap.

But Nene just shook her head, and turning to exit the shop said over her shoulder, "No, that's ok, mister. He's on the house. Just make sure he finds the right kind of home."

As she walked out the door and climbed on the bike parked outside, the crow swooped from wherever it had been perched above. It landed on her shoulder, and, as she started the bike and pulled away, Nene was almost sure that, somewhere inside her head, she could hear Razz screaming.

Mackie was elbows deep in the work he planned on having finished before Nene's return when one of the upstairs intrusion alarms began to beep softly. "Ah, shit," he said resignedly. Making his way to the nearest terminal, he punched up a micro-cam view of the garage's ruined interior and, spying the intruders, grunted in recognition. "Oh, hell, not them again," he said aloud. Sighing, he watched their progress on the monitor, wishing they'd leave so that he could get back to work.

Upstairs, Leon and Ami poked and prodded their way around the garage, looking for anything that might be a concealed doorway or elevator.

"Anything?" Leon asked.

Takashi shook her head, and said, "There are all kinds of things in here that could be what we're looking for, but nothing for sure. And no damn controls."

"Probably wireless, or voice coded, or some shit like that. Hell, for all I know, you might have to moon the right wall and let it scan the rings around-"

"Stop!" Takashi said sharply, raising a hand in a 'halt!' gesture. "You've got way too much time on your hands if you can think up shit like that, McNichol."

"Huh!" Leon said. "I wish." And then, frowning, he said, "And I'm about tired of wasting time looking for something that was designed not to be found."

Puzzled, Ami said, "So what do you want to do? Quit and go home?"

Shaking his head, Leon said, "Hell no. But let's try the direct approach." And, taking a deep breath, he bellowed, "Stingray! We know you're in here somewhere! And I'm damn sure you can hear me! We just need to talk to you for a minute, that's all, so come on out!"

They waited for a few moments, and when nothing happened, Ami said, "Good try, McNichol, but if he is here, I don't think he's buying it."

Angry now, Leon yelled, "Goddamn it, kid, I said all we want is to talk! So get your ass out here, before we decide to come back with a friggin' jack-hammer and a couple of construction boomers to run the damn thing! And if you don't think I can make that happen, you better think again!"

Ami raised an eyebrow and looked at Leon quizzically. In response, in a stage whisper Leon said, "Well, he doesn't know I can't."

As he said this, there was a slight noise behind them, and both cops whirled, hands going automatically to the shoulder holsters inside their jackets.

"No need for gun play, officers," Mackie said, stepping out of the shadows. "What can I do for you?"

Both officers relaxed visibly, and Leon said, "Like I said, we need to talk to you. That's all."

Frowning, Mackie said, "About what, exactly, Officer McNichol? I thought we'd pretty much finished talking a few months ago."

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Stingray!" Leon said. "Let's stop playing stupid ass games. Where the hell is she? And what do you have her doing?"

"Excuse me?" Mackie said, confused by the last part of Leon's question. "Where is who?"

Rolling his eyes, Leon said, "The damn Nene-bot, of course. You couldn't think that somebody wouldn't figure it out eventually, could you? I mean, hell, who else knew her that well and also happens to know enough about boomers to kit-bash something like that together? You tell me, kid."

Non-plused for a moment, Mackie couldn't help but laugh as the sense of what Leon had said dawned on him.

Frowning, Leon said, "What the hell is so funny, Stingray? Or are you losing it on us?"

Mackie shook his head, and said, "McNichol, that's the dumbest damn thing I've heard anybody say in a long time. That's why I'm laughing. Nene-bot!"

Temper rising, Leon said, "Really? Well, how funny is being arrested, then?"

"What?" Mackie said incredulously. "On what damn charge?"

"Suspicion of illegal recycling and/or unauthorized alterations, unlicensed ownership, and possession of illegal weapons, for starts. Do I need to go on?"

"This is bullshit!" Mackie said, indignant. "You don't have a shred of evidence! Hell, you don't even have a decent theory!"

Leon shrugged, and, bluffing, said, "Maybe. But I think there's enough circumstantial shit to at least bring you in for questioning. Could take a couple of days, at least, assuming that nothing else comes to light. If that happens, you could be up shit creek. You still feel like being a smart-ass with us?"

Mackie swallowed down his indignation, trying to gauge whether or not they were serious. But as near as he could tell, Leon intended to follow through with his threat, and Takashi was giving nothing away.

Finally, slumping slightly, he said, "Ah, hell. What do you want to know?"

Winking to Leon, Takashi stepped up to Mackie and put a sympathetic hand on his good arm. "Hey, calm down, kid." She said. "It's gonna be ok. Just tell us what's going on, and maybe we can help."

Studying Takashi closely, Mackie said, "So what's this? Good cop, bad cop?"

Takashi snorted and said, "Hell, kid, most of the people who know me would say that Leon's the good cop. Usually, I'm just a cast-iron bitch to everybody, and I've been known to use a combat knife as an interrogation tool. But it's not hard to see that something's really eating you up inside, and I'd like to know what."

Leon nodded appreciatively, and realized that her interrogation technique wasn't hurt at all by the fact that she was sincere. Hell, for that matter, all he really wanted was to know what was going on. Chief had made it plain that the case was closed, and Leon wasn't even sure he wanted to stop what was happening. After all, what was occurring down in the Canyons was probably the only justice any of the Knight Saber's murderers was ever likely to face. But before he could just walk away and let things take their course, he had to know.

Mackie sighed, and said, "You won't believe this. Any of it."

"Try us." Leon said.

"Ok," Mackie began, "It's like this…"

"Bullshit!" Leon said a few minutes later, indignant.

Mackie shook his head slowly, and said, "I told you you wouldn't believe it."

"Well of course I don't believe it!" Leon yelled. "I was right here when they pronounced her dead! When they loaded her up and took her away! When Fusikawa performed the damn autopsy! And when they put her in the ground at Yokohama! Hell, you and Takashi were there too!"

Angry now too, Mackie said, "Yeah, I was! And like I told her last night, I heard everything those bastards did to her! I saw her bloody corpse after I dragged myself out of that closet! She died! I friggin' know that! But I also know that, somehow, she came back!" And, in a quieter tone he added, "And I know that she's not a damned boomer. There's no way in hell she could've fooled me this long."

Takashi exhaled loudly, and said, "Y'know, Leon, I think it's pretty safe to say that he believes what he's saying."

Leon shook his head angrily, and said, "Yeah, well, we probably should get him some professional help then. If he believes that shit, he needs it."

"So what do you want to do, McNichol? Send the kid to see the wizard? Somehow, I don't think we're going to make any hard arrests here."

"Ah, shit." Leon said tiredly, rubbing his nose with thumb and forefinger. "I don't know anymore, Takashi. This shit just keeps getting weirder as we go along."

"You ready to give up?" She said in surprise.

"No," Leon said, "not yet."

Frowning, Takashi said, "Well, that leaves us with two choices, basically. Either we stake this place out-"

"Don't bother," Mackie said quietly. "She'd know. And she wouldn't come back here until you were gone. Or she'd find a way to sneak in."

"Ok," Takashi said, irritated, "Then the only other damn thing to do would be to head down to the Outer District and try to run her down."

Leon nodded his head slowly, and said, "So the Outer District it is."

Mackie shook his head and said, "You shouldn't do that. She was worried about you, Leon. She said that she was afraid you'd get yourself killed if you went down there poking around."

Leon snorted, and said, "Great! Now even the boomers are worried about me."

Takashi frowned, and said, "I don't know, Leon. Maybe we shouldn't blind ourselves to the possibility that she could be something besides a boomer."

Looking at her incredulously, Leon said, "What! Don't tell me you've flipped your damn lid too, Takashi!"

"Alright, McNichol," Ami said with an edge in her voice. "I've had just about enough of your hard-headed bullshit for one night, so chill the hell out. All I'm saying is, we shouldn't go running into this with our minds made up. We had a theory, and so far it hasn't panned out. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence here to suggest she's a boomer, but who the hell knows? I've had a weird feeling about this whole thing since it started."

Leon shook his head slowly, and said, "Well, I'll be damned. Ok, let's put this to rest right now." And, whipping his cell phone from his jacket, Leon accessed it's Net functions. Using his high-level access to surf into the N-Police secure site, he ran a query, asking for any incidents in the Yokohama Cemetery in the last thirty-six hours. After a few seconds, he was stunned by the return.

"What?" Takashi asked as she saw him pale. "What the hell did you find, Leon?"

"Nothing," he said in an odd voice. "Just more bullshit, that's all."

Frowning, Ami reached for the phone, and said, "Just bullshit, huh? Then let me take a look, McNichol."

Sighing, he handed it over without protest. A few moments later, in a small voice Takashi said, "Holy shit."

"What?" Mackie said, frowning. "What is it?"  
Handing the phone absently back to Leon, she said in a bemused tone, "Seems there was a grave violated out in Yokohama last night. Plot number 137a, belonging to-'

"Nene Romanova." Mackie finished quietly.

Ami nodded, and, continuing in the same tone of bewilderment, said, "The strange part is, it doesn't look like the grave was dug up. It looks like somebody dug their way out. From the inside. The N-cops don't have a clue what to make of it."

"Do you see now?" Mackie said earnestly. "It's her."

Leon shook his head stubbornly, and said, "There's no way in hell I'll believe that. But you know what? I'm gonna see for myself just what the hell she is. You coming, Takashi?"

"Oh, I wouldn't miss this for the world," she said. "Not for the world."

As The Tin Man stood, contemplating, on the roof of the covertly rebuilt Hong Triad's headquarters, a messenger approached him from behind. He continued to look out over the garishly neon-lighted environs of the Outer District, visible from his relatively high perch, and remembered a much more impressive view he'd once had from higher up still. But he'd changed since then, in many ways, and was changing still at an ever-increasing pace. He no longer felt the burning desire for those heights, for he knew they would come to him in time. He realized now, as he hadn't then, that time was his greatest ally. Time and patience.

The messenger stopped a few respectful paces behind The Tin Man, and stood there nervously, not wanting to interrupt his master, the unacknowledged driving force behind the Hong Triad. For his part, The Tin Man let the messenger stand for a few moments, knowing that his discomfort grew. It was good to remind underlings of their place from time to time, he felt.

Finally, the Tin Man turned his head slightly, acknowledging the messenger, and said, "Yes?"

"Sir," the messenger said in a tightly controlled voice, "I have news regarding one of those whom you wanted monitored."

Vaguely amused, The Tin Man said, "Go on."

The other continued, saying, "It's the android, Razz, sir. He-"

"Is no longer with us." The Tin Man finished slowly.

Surprised, the other stammered, "Y- Yes sir. You already know, sir?"

The Tin Man smiled thinly, and said, "I know a great many things these days. Information flows into me from more and more sources every hour. Every second! Very soon, all the information in the world may very well be a part of me."

Not knowing what to say, the messenger was silent. But his was a very nervous silence.

Finally, The Tin Man said, "You've done well. You may go now."

Grateful for this dismissal, the messenger performed the necessary courtesies and then hastily left the way he'd come.

Looking back out over the cesspool of neon light below him, The Tin Man thought, 'I wonder. Could it really be her?' And, reaching out through the myriad connections that he was slowly integrating into himself, he sought an answer to that question. What eventually came back to him was both surprising and intriguing.

'So there are precedents after all,' he thought in a vague sort of wonder. And then, 'What an odd, beautiful world we inhabit.'

Staring off into space again, buoyed by the sea of information on which he swam, The Tin Man had a final thought on the subject. 'And, it seems, those in her situation have weaknesses. But then, don't we all.'

Once she'd ensured Razz's future, Nene continued on toward the pit fights, considering her next move as she roared through the broken, crowded streets. She had little doubt she'd be able to find Moe there. He seemed the type one might find either competing in or betting on something called a 'pit fight', whatever it might actually be. And while she could make some guesses, Nene wasn't really sure just what a pit fight was. She'd only heard the term for the first time the night before. But she figured that she'd find out soon enough.

As the crowd thickened around her, and the street opened up into a wide ruined area of broken and uneven masonry, the remnants of buildings that had fallen completely during the Quake, Nene began to get some idea of what the pit fights were. Ahead of her, she saw a roughly circular depression, maybe three meters deep and ten meters across, possibly the remnants of an old basement, or, like The Asshole, some part of the city's sewer system. Looking around, Nene realized that the pit in front of her wasn't unique. There were at least a dozen others, all with their own cheering, jostling crowds.

'Huh!' She thought. 'So that's it. Like a Roman arena, only a lot skankier. It figures.'

She attracted little attention as she rolled up and parked the bike, setting the alarm almost automatically now. Dismounting, she strolled about, making her way from pit to pit. She found that the combatants ran the gamut from human to boomer, and all between, with a few thrown in that she wasn't sure were either. And then, finally, she spied her quarry.

Moe wasn't fighting tonight, it seemed. Instead, he stood at the edge of one of the pits, leaning forward anxiously to follow the combat below. He cheered as one of the combatants, a dark-haired woman in tight leather pants and a black halter top raked her opponent across the chest with the glowing, humming, twenty-centimeter claws that extended from her fingers. The other, a supped-up kit-bash based on an Eibisu generic model, roared a metallic challenge in reply, and swung wildly with it's spiked fists.

The woman, almost certainly a 33C to judge by her internal weaponry, Nene thought, dodged the clumsy attack with ease, though she seemed slowed by a slight limp. The kit-bash pursued her relentlessly as she dodged around it, slicing it here and nicking it there. Finally, apparently tiring of the game she played with her inferior opponent, the dark-haired woman leaped over it, somersaulting and twisting in the air as she went. She landed directly behind and facing the other boomer, and drove her glowing blades home with a savage cry. The kit-bash gave an odd, metallic gurgle and dropped to it's knees. Grinning fiercely, the woman drew back with her other hand and decapitated it with a single swift blow, sending it's metallic head rolling to stop with a dull clang against the nearest wall. Throwing both hands up above her, she roared like a victorious lion.

At the pit's edge, Nene heard Moe chuckle and, to a fellow spectator, he said, "Goddamn! That Jade sure does enjoy her work, don't she? Knew I'd make me a pile of money bettin' on that psycho boomer mama!"

The other laughed as well, and with a muttered agreement moved away to either collect his winnings or catch another fight. Moe just shook his head in a satisfied way and turned from the pit, intending to call it a night. But Nene had other plans.

Sidling up to Moe's right, she slipped her left hand around his arm, and, with her right, pressed the coke-can sized pistol grenade mated to her borrowed hand-canon into his side. His eyes widened in surprise, and, looking down he said, "What the f-!"

But Nene cut him off, saying, "Ah! Careful, Moe! This thing's got a hair trigger, and I'm feeling just a little bit jumpy tonight."

Frowning, he said menacingly, "Izzat so? Well, little mama, I happen to know there's no way that thing'll arm this close in. It's gotta spin so many times first. Usually takes at least a few meters. Get where I'm comin' from?"

Nene smiled sweetly, disconcerting the ebony giant, and said, "Oh, I know that, silly! But I'm pretty sure just the impact will mess you up really good and probably knock you ass over tea kettle too." And then, her smile slowly becoming a wicked grin, Nene said, "And you can bet this isn't the only one I've got."

Realizing that something just wasn't right with the tiny red-head, Moe swallowed once and said, "Ok. What the hell you want, then? Cash? I got that. Dope? I can get that too. Some other shit? Name it."

Nene shook her head slowly, and said, "Information, Moe. For starts, anyway. Oh, and a ride. You do have wheels, don't you?"

Moe grunted, and said, "Yeah, I got wheels. Where the hell you wanna go?"

"Oh, we'll get to that, Moe," she said. "For now, let's just find your ride, shall we?"

Moe shook his head in disbelief, and, heading for a large, black chrome-wheeled Cadillac, old but well taken care of, he muttered, "Ain't this some shit. You better take off runnin' when we get wherever you're going, little mama. 'Cause if I ever get my hands on you-"

Nene sighed loudly, and said, "Promises, promises. You shouldn't make promises you can't keep, you know. They're bad for business." And then, tone darkening, she snarled, "And we both know business is business for you."

Frowning, Moe said, "What the hell're you talkin' about, woman?"

In a voice choked with emotion, Nene rasped, "That's what you told my friend right before you crushed her throat, isn't it Moe? You don't remember that?"

Eyes widening, Moe said, "Oh, shit! You're the one! The little bitch who did Delilah last night!"

Nene chuckled hollowly, a sound like the echo from a crypt that sent a chill down Moe's spine, and said softly, "And Razz. I gave him a whole new perspective on things a little while ago. I think he's going to have a lot of fun in his new occupation. Or at least, he's going to bring a whole lot of fun to somebody else."

"Jesus Christ!" Moe exclaimed as they reached the car. "Who the hell are you!"

Nene just shook her head, and said, "You know, Moe. You just can't admit it to yourself, that's all. Now get in the car. From the passenger side, of course. Wouldn't want you over there where you might do something stupid, after all."

Eyes wide with apprehension, Moe did as she ordered, and, starting the car as she slipped in beside him, he said, "There ain't no way you can be that girl. That little red-headed cop. I killed her myself!"

Nene nodded slowly, and said, "Oh, yeah, I remember. Just a little twist of the neck, and 'Snap!' It was all over." And then, grinning maliciously in Moe's direction she added, "But it wasn't all over, Moe. Not really. Not yet. But it will be. Soon."

Moe swallowed nervously, suddenly recalling some of the tales his Creole grandmother, a practitioner of _Santaria_, had terrified him and his siblings with as children. Hadn't she told them that the dead could rise again? That, under the right circumstances, they could return from their graves to wreak vengeance upon the living? Of course, he'd dismissed such tales as he grew older, but they'd given him nightmares for years when he'd been little. And now one of those nightmares had come back and was sitting right beside him.

"Well drive, Moe," she said sardonically, waving the pistol grenade negligently in his direction. "We'll never get anywhere like this."

"You ain't gonna use that thing in here," he stammered. "No way!"

Nene just smiled and said, "Wouldn't I? After all, Moe, what've I got to loose? You already took everything that mattered."

Real terror gripping him now, Moe threw the car into gear and pulled out, muttering, "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. No way. No way this can be happenin'."

"Funny," Nene said sarcastically, "That's what I was telling myself a year ago tonight. What an odd little coincidence, don't you think?"

Moe just shook his head, sweating profusely now, and said, "This is crazy shit! Where the hell are we goin' anyway?"

Nene leaned back in the seat, apparently relaxing, and said, "Why, to see your buddy Tin Man, of course. You can't have a show without the whole cast present, now can you?"

Moe grunted and said, "Huh! Your makin' a big mistake there, girl! Tin Man's a big high muckey-muck with the Hong Triad these days. Ain't no way you can touch him!"

Nene sighed and said, "Oh ye of little faith. But don't worry about that part, Moe. Your job is just to get me there. You can do that, right?"

Moe nodded, eying her and the grenade nervously, and said, "Yeah, I can get you there. Not like you're leavin' me much choice, you little psycho."

Nene shook her head slowly and, in a wistful, mocking tone said, "That's just it, Moe. None of seems to have much choice these days. We're all just victims in the end, now aren't we?"

Moe could think of no reply for this, and as they drove on in silence, the crow soared along above, cawing loudly as it flew.


	9. Chapter 9

_Well, here's chapter 9 for your purusal and amusement; let me know what you think, huh?_

Leon and Ami sped down the progressively more battered streets in the unmarked that both of them had had the sense to check out from the motor pool before entering the Canyons. As flamboyant as Leon normally was, even he knew better than to go where they were going in a marked car.

There was a strained silence between them as they drove, the result of their earlier disagreement and Leon's stubborn refusal to entertain any other notion than his kit-bashed boomer theory. For her part, Takashi remained uncertain of what was really going on, but had begun to suspect that whatever it was, it would be far stranger than a tastelessly rebuilt and reprogrammed boomer.

Eventually they reached environs with which Leon was unfamiliar, and, slowing, he said, "So which way now, Takashi?"

"Depends," she said. "Where do you want to try first? The Pits or The Asshole?"

Leon snorted and said, "Sounds like a damned anatomy class instead of an investigation."

Ami shook her head and said, "Cute, McNichol. So which is it?"

"The Asshole, I guess," Leon said. "That's where Delilah bit it, so I guess that's as good a place to start as any."

Ami nodded and said, "I suppose so. I just hope, after all this time, I still have a little pull left in there. If not, this could be a real short night."

Leon grunted and said, "Well, it's a little late to be getting cold feet, Ami."

She frowned and said teasingly, "Cold feet? Me? You been smoking something when I wasn't looking, McNichol?"

Leon shook his head and said, "Always gotta be the tough girl, huh Takashi? Don't you ever give that shit a rest?"

Ami laughed and said, "Shit Leon, that's a case of the pot calling the kettle black! I'll hang up the act if you do!"

Leon sighed loudly and said, "Yeah, I can see why they shipped you off to Kobe, Ami. You fit in with the 'new ADP' just about as well as I do."

She nodded slowly, and said, "I guess you're right, Leon. Both of us are just left-overs from the days when the ADP was about _doing_ shit, not _talking_ about doing shit and then doing nothing. The damn politicians and corporates have us by the balls, and the brass are part of the problem, not the solution."

"Kinda' makes you wonder why we bother any more, doesn't it?" Leon said dispiritedly.

"The same reason we always have, Leon," she said. "Because there are people out here who need cops like us, now more than ever. There's gotta be somebody out here doing something to counter balance all the political bullshit going on upstairs. If not, the whole damn thing will fall down around our ears, and the corporates will be able to do whatever the hell they want."

Frowning, Leon said, "Don't they already?"

"More or less," Ami agreed, and then said, "But at least they have to sneak around to do it, and that means we're still doing something." Shaking her head, she added, "Todo understood all that shit. That's why they replaced him with the bastard that they did."

"Huh!" Leon said. "I never thought about it that way." And then, frowning, he said, "Uh, Ami?"

"Yeah?" She replied.

"You think you could give me some directions before we end up in the damn bay or something?"

She rolled her eyes and said, "Sure McNichol."

As she explained the directions to Leon, her eye was momentarily caught by a large black Cadillac as it passed them heading in the opposite direction. It was impossible to see through the illegally mirrored tint that covered all the vehicle's windows, but something about the car nagged at Ami. There was something familiar about it. Unable to place it, however, she finally dismissed it. As Leon had said before, not everything was a conspiracy, after all. Still, there remained just a tiny hinky feeling she couldn't entirely talk herself out of.

As they rounded a corner, Moe pointed to a mostly intact building a few blocks ahead, and said, "That's it. Regional headquarters for the Hong Triad. But don't tell any of them I told you that."

Nene shook her head, and said, "I don't think you'll need to worry about that, Moe. Drive. Faster."

Frowning, Moe said, "What the hell you mean, drive faster? We're almost there."

Nene nodded and said, "I know." And then, suddenly, her left foot shot out and pressed the accelerator to the floor.

"What the hell!" Moe yelled as the Detroit monster shot forward.

Nene smiled darkly and said, "Just sit back and enjoy the ride, Moe. It's almost over."

By the time Moe got around to trying to wrest Nene away from the gas, they were almost even with the Hong building and traveling at nearly a hundred-thirty kph. Giving ground in the face of Moe's vastly superior strength, Nene nonetheless grabbed the steering wheel as he shoved her away, yanking it sharply to the right. This sent them headlong on a collision course with the Hong building, with no chance of stopping before impact.

As Moe turned toward Nene, shocked, she rolled back toward the passenger door, her left hand darting to the latch. The door popped open, and as she tumbled out, Nene gave Moe a final sweet smile, gazing into his horrified eyes as she fired the pistol grenade towards his face.

The force of the explosion picked her up and tossed her through the air, and she tumbled head over heels as she hit the pavement at over a hundred kph. Finally, she rolled to a stop, bloodied, bruised and broken, but healing already. Ahead of her, there was a crash and then another explosion as the car's gasohol tank went up, most likely in the Hong building's lobby.

As her final fracture snapped back into alignment on it's own, Nene slowly stood and surveyed her handiwork. Not too bad, if she did say so herself. Certainly there'd be no way for the Hong people to overlook her arrival.

Sliding Muramasa from it's sheathe and activating it on the fly, she strode purposefully through the Hong building's new freight entrance. She ignored the burning wreck and the remnants of it's driver as she passed, but couldn't help but notice that the explosion apparently hadn't been entirely symmetrical.

She smiled with grim satisfaction as she saw that the area engulfed by flame conformed roughly in shape to the outline of a certain familiar bird.

A few blocks away, both Leon and Ami were startled by the sudden loud explosion behind them.

"Son of a bitch!" Leon said, slamming on the brakes and bringing them to a screaming halt. "What the hell?"

Ami punched the dashboard in front of her in sudden recognition, and said, "Shit! That damn Cadillac! Now I know where I saw the friggin' thing before! It was Moe's! He brought it with him from the States when he came over here!"

Jamming the unmarked into reverse, Leon whipped into a J-turn and then punched it, heading back the way they'd come.

"Well, better late than never, I guess!" Leon said. "At least now it doesn't look like we'll have to crawl all over the damn Canyons looking for her, huh?"

Ami shook her head, and said, "You've got a real talent for stating the obvious, McNichol. You know that?"

Leon just grinned and put the pedal even further to the metal.

Nene paced carefully through the building, reasoning that wherever she found the most resistance would probably be where she'd find The Tin Man. As she neared the elevators at the back of the lobby, sleek and new unlike the building's exterior and luckily untouched by the explosion or the fire that had followed, both dinged loudly, indicating that they'd stopped on this floor. Nene stood and watched curiously as the doors opened, disgorging a half-dozen armed men each.

They were dressed in business attire, but moved like soldiers. They fired as they left the elevator, but were careful to move in and confine their fire to lanes, avoiding fratricide. But homicide was another matter, and it was on this that they seemed bent.

Nene cart wheeled to the right, avoiding the first spray of bullets, and then changed direction, tumbling under the next burst to pop up in front of the surprised gunmen. She lashed out with an axe kick, disarming one of them, and used the momentum from this to bring Muramasa, again held in a reversed grip, around in an arc that tore into the gunman's chest. As he shrieked and fell, she flipped the blade over and brought it back for a strike that nearly decapitated the next hired gun in line.

Flowing with the momentum from this, she delivered a savage side kick to another thug's sternum, driving him into the wall and shattering his ribs, though not fatally. By this time, a fourth gunman had her range, and unloaded several rounds from the compact assault module he carried into her torso and abdomen.

Nene's body jarred with each impact, and she was knocked back to slam against the wall behind her. But instead of slumping down as the shooter expected, she just looked up at him and smiled as the bloody holes in her chest and stomach closed up before his eyes. Taking advantage of his shock, she lashed out with Muramasa, opening his abdomen up like a zip-loc bag and dumping the contents messily to the floor. As he collapsed with a strange strangled moan, Nene grabbed his weapon in her left hand and turned to face the other Triad enforcers.

Pirouetting to her left, she laid down a scythe of fire that cut down four of the remaining gunmen outright and winged two others. She burned up the entire magazine this way, and then tossed the weapon aside casually. The two thugs left standing, for wont of a better course of action, again laid down a hail of fire, but again she dodged, cart wheeling and twisting out of the way. Finally, she tucked and rolled under their arc of fire, ending up literally at their feet.

Flipping Muramasa to a forward grip, she stabbed out at the gunman in front of her, skewering his groin. He screamed, high and pure, and collapsed, hands clasped to his bleeding crotch, and Nene turned to the last able-bodied thug. Out of ammo, he backed away, popping the magazine release and fumbling in his jacket for a fresh one. But Nene didn't give him the chance.

In a blur of motion, her left hand darted down to the laser-edged blade in her boot and, whipping it out and activating it, she let it fly with a back-handed toss. Whistling across the room, the blade buried itself in the enforcer's forehead, killing him before his body even hit the floor.

Nene recovered her knife, and then surveyed the scene around her. Of those still alive, none of the Triad men seemed inclined to challenge her further. This being the case, she turned wordlessly and boarded one of the elevators. As the doors began to close, with a rush of wings and a rustling of feathers, the crow shot the gap between and came to rest on her shoulder, squawking chidingly.

Nene smiled wryly, and said, "Oh, knock it off. You know I wasn't going to leave without you." The crow cawed softly then, apparently mollified.

Studying the elevator panel, Nene muttered to herself, "Up or down? Which way, I wonder?" But as she pondered this, the crow hopped down to her wrist and, without hesitating, pecked at the very top button so that it lit up. Smoothly, the elevator began to ascend toward the conference room level.

"Ok," Nene said resignedly, "Up it is. And I sure hope you know what you're doing." The crow squawked in what could only be construed as rebuke, and then was silent again.

After a surprisingly short trip, the elevator stopped, and the doors opened. Stepping out cautiously, Nene took stock of her surroundings. Beyond the small lobby space for the elevators, there were several doors. The most impressive of these was a set of mahogany colored double doors at the end of a short hallway, and it was to these that Nene gravitated.

Striding up confidently, she threw the doors open, revealing a large conference room with windows all around and a long, low table in the middle. Seated at the head of the table was an unremarkable, middle-aged man who said nothing as she entered. To his right and left were a man and a woman, respectively, both occidentals. The man was blonde haired and blue eyed, and the woman had hair and eyes the same lustrous shade of black. All three were dressed in nondescript business attire.

Behind them, though, hands clasped behind his back as he gazed thoughtfully at Nene, stood The Tin Man. He was attired all in leather as before, but cut differently this time, more in the style of an expensive suit. And instead of all black, his clothes had an odd, subdued color scheme that Nene found both familiar and disturbing for some reason.

"Hello, Tin Man," she said in a low voice. "So let me guess. These other three must be Dorothy, The Scarecrow, and The Cowardly Lion. Or maybe those were your other friends. Delilah made a pretty poor Dorothy, but Razz could certainly have been The Scarecrow. And Moe made a great Cowardly Lion. Too bad they're all gone now, huh?"

Cocking his head slightly, The Tin Man said, "An amusing analogy, Ms. Romanova. But like all analogies, only useful to a point."

In the back of Nene's mind, small alarms bells began to ring. Something wasn't right here. Something about The Tin Man.

"Alright, let's cut through the crap then, Tin Man," she said doggedly. "You owe me. In fact, you owe four other people too, but I'm the one who was sent to collect." And then, sardonically, "Are you ready to pay up?"

The Tin Man smiled thinly, and said, "The arrogance of youth. We all go through it, I suppose. But there are some things you simply don't understand, I'm afraid. Allow me to enlighten you."

With that, The Tin Man raised a hand and waved it in her direction, unleashing a wave of compressed space-time from his upturned palm. Nene was hit by what felt like a tree trunk across her torso and abdomen, and was thrown back to slam into the wall beside the wooden double doors, her body almost imbedded there. She felt bones snap and other unidentifiable things inside her pop wetly. A gout of blood launched itself from her mouth with the impact.

Dazed despite her newfound robustness, as she felt things inside of her begin to knit, she looked up at The Tin Man in amazed horror. As she watched, The Tin Man's features began to change, waxing metallic, and finally he became a stylized sculpture of himself, wrought in dull gray.

Eyes wide, blood dripping from her lips and chin, Nene breathed one word. "Largo."

The Tin Man shook his head slightly, and, amused, said, "In a manner of speaking. But, much like yourself, Largo died. His body was utterly destroyed when he plummeted from the Genom tower over a year and a half ago. All that survived was his mind."

He paused then, turning to look out the large bay windows that surrounded them, and then continued. "That mind, hastily dumped into the Net as he fell, ended up being far from complete. There just wasn't time or bandwidth to carry it all, you see. But the essentials survived. The most important parts. And the blueprints for rebuilding the whole. I am the result of that."

Shaking her head in disbelief, Nene said, "But how? How did you get here?"

The Tin Man was silent for a moment, apparently lost in thought, and then said, "For the first few months, I was a creature of the Net. Confused, disjointed, and diffuse. Eventually, I think I might have simply dispersed altogether, just spreading out further and further until there was nothing left. But then some part of me saw you again as images of you inundated the media. The four of you, as you saved the AD Police tower from calamity. And this acted as a catalyst of sorts, re-kindling my rage to begin with, and my will to survive soon after. From there, it was a fairly short step to my reintegration and reawakening to full awareness."

Almost fully healed now, and stalling for time, Nene said, "And then?"

"And then," The Tin Man continued, "I acted. It was obvious that the four of you were a far greater threat than I'd ever imagined, after what you'd managed to do to me, and so I decided to take the obvious steps." Again he paused, smiling just slightly, and then said, "Before, I suppose I'd have tried to design some grandiose scheme to humiliate the four of you, and some unwieldy means of carrying it our. But I learned a very important lesson that day on the Genom tower. The lesson of humility."

Intrigued now, Nene said, "Humility? What do you mean by that?"

"What I mean," The Tin Man said, "is that it was hammered home to me very plainly that, while powerful beyond most men's dreams, I was not a god. Not yet, at least, in spite of any delusions I'd had to the contrary. Obviously, I was still mortal, and subject to all the ills of the mortal realm. That being the case, practicality followed on the heels of humility. I realized that some things simply needed to be done as efficiently and quickly as possible, and that all the posturing I'd so enjoyed before had only made me less effective. Hence the little tragedy in Raven's Garage."

"So you set the whole thing up," Nene said savagely. "How?"

The Tin Man shook his head slowly, and said, "It wasn't difficult, child. I already knew that Sylia Stingray was a Knight Saber, and I saw Asagiri's face when we fought at the tower. It wasn't hard to match the face with the woman from inside the Net. And then there was you. You and your little friend Lisa Vanette."

With a sharp intake of breath, Nene said, "Lisa? What do you mean?"

"Oh, come now," The Tin Man said reprovingly. "It's only obvious really. I know about the photo. After all, she had to download it from her camera in order to process it, now didn't she? And the computer she processed it on was connected to the Net, of course. It was just a stroke of luck, I suppose, but some random shard of me happened across that image, and after I reintegrated, the rest devolved from there. Now I knew the identities of three of the four Knight Sabers, and that was enough for me to act. So, in a very real sense, I have you and Lisa to thank for that. Without having that third identity, I probably wouldn't have made the moves I did."

Somewhere inside herself, Nene felt a scream building, just waiting to come out. It was her fault! If she'd been more careful, or had just been a better fighter to start with, that boomer would've never shattered her faceplate, Lisa would've never gotten that photo of her face, and Largo wouldn't have had enough information to feel comfortable in launching the covert hit that'd killed her and her friends. It was almost too much to bear.

"The rest was simple." The Tin Man said. "Just a matter of locating the right organization and dropping the bios anonymously along with very credible, if very false information leading said organization to believe that the Knight Sabers had just taken a contract to destroy them. That organization being the Hong Triad, of course, which is in all actuality, nothing more than a front entity for the trafficking of certain illegal commodities by Genom. That was the key part, you see. Naturally, with credible information that one of their important shadow operations was about to be hit, and the necessary data for a preemptive strike available, action was sanctioned at the highest levels. Hence the rather effective smokescreen after the fact."

Nene shook her head, and said, "So we never had a chance. You made sure of that."

The Tin Man nodded, and said, "Of course. You Knight Sabers taught me a very valuable lesson there on top of the tower. In many ways, I should thank you, I suppose. But really, I already have."

Fully restored physically, but sick at heart, Nene had to know just one more thing. "But how did you get here, Largo? How did you and this Tin Man-!"

"Become one?" He finished for her. "That's not so difficult either. I discovered Mr. Fukabayashi, The Tin Man, when I decided to use the Hong Triad, and I was in need of a physical focus for my new self. It was just too difficult to remain coherent inside the Net without one. And so I planted a… 'seed' of myself inside Masami through his cyberware. That wasn't difficult at all since most of what he had was recycled boomerware. Cheap, but certainly not safe. Over time, that seed grew, and intertwined with Masami, reworking his body as it did his mind, eventually forming a rather robust hybrid. And now we're both here, or neither, depending on your point of view." Pausing once more in contemplation, he continued, "And we're still out there as well. Still on the Net, still growing, changing, and interlinking with our myriad incarnations and with this body. Soon, I'll have no need for the Chairman's overrated Over Mind System. I'll have become an Overmind. Within a few more hours, a day at most, the various parts of me will finally have achieved a sort of critical mass within the Net, and a phase change will occur, like a gas suddenly flaring into an incandescent plasma. The Net will become me, and I will become the Net. Once that's come to pass, anything is possible! I'll finally pacify this unruly world and turn it's energies to more worthy causes. The enmity between man and cyberdroid will finally end, because there will no longer be one or the other. I will make them one. In fact, I will make everything one. And then we, as one, will move out to bring reason to this disorderly cosmos. I will have finally become a god in truth."

Nene blinked in utter disbelief at this. There was only one reaction she could even imagine to what The Tin Man had just said, and she made the mistake of doing it aloud. She laughed. "You're out of your recycled mind, Largo." She said scathingly.

The Tin Man smiled thinly again, absolutely no humor visible in the expression, and said mildly, "A matter of opinion, of course. But in this case, I think mine is the opinion that counts." And, motioning to the two seated occidentals, he said, "Samael? Lilith? I believe it's time our guest was taken care of."


	10. Chapter 10

_Well, here's chapter 10. Things are beginning to come to a boil here and only two chapters left if you're wondering! Hope you're enjoying this and thanks to those who've shared their thoughts on the story so far._

The ADP unmarked screeched to a halt in front of the dilapidated looking office building, the lobby of which now burned brightly. Leon and Ami were prepared for an immediate exit, weapons drawn, but before they could make a move, their attention was caught by the sound of shattering glass from above.

Looking up simultaneously, they saw a top floor window explode outward with a tiny figure in the middle of it all. As they watched, that figure plummeted toward them and, with a jarring impact smashed face first into the unmarked's windshield. Blood sprayed in all directions, and ran freely down the car's hood from the torn and broken female figure lying sprawled there.

"Holy shit!" Leon exclaimed. "What the hell?"

And then the broken figure on the windshield opened her eyes and, seeing Leon, tried to speak. "Drive" she whispered. "For God's sake, Leon, drive!"

Looking up, Takashi saw two figures, humanoid in outline and form but far too shiny, poke their heads and then their bodies from the shattered window above.

"Oh, shit, Leon! Do it! Drive! We got friggin' company up there, and it ain't friendly!"

Looking up as he slammed the unmarked into reverse, Leon said, "Ah, hell. It figures. We go looking for trouble, and trouble damn well finds us first!"

Above them, between the two metallic figures, a small black shape suddenly shot out, banking and juking as it flew to avoid the fire directed toward it. Popping concealed flight jets from calves and shoulders, Samael and Lilith leapt from the window in pursuit, both of the fleeing automobile and of the crow.

For it's part, the crow continued to dodge and pinwheel, finally darting into the speeding auto through Takashi's open window and ducking into the back seat. "Jesus!" She exclaimed as it fluttered past her face and then, leaning far out the window, drew the Webley from it's holster.

The two boomers, some advanced, humaniform type that Takashi'd never seen before, dropped down and skimmed behind them, gaining rapidly. Ami activated the laser sighting in her cyber eye and, with a mental command kicked in her only other pieces of cyberware, a set of artificial glands that rode atop the adrenal cortices of her kidneys. She felt an immediate rush, and the world seemed to slow down just a bit around her as her reflexes accelerated. Bringing the targeting reticule into alignment with the hard-sight of her weapon, she sighted in on the nearest of the two, the female model, and fired.

Contrary to popular belief and popular movies, it was by no means easy to hit a moving target, especially when you were moving yourself. But, like Leon, Ami had had experience with such things over the years, and scored a torso hit with one of the huge armor piercing rounds. To no effect whatsoever.

Ami's eyes widened in disbelief. She knew that the rounds she was packing were capable of at least nicking the hide of even a battle-rated boomer, and the fact that they hadn't even scratched this one didn't bode well. Not at all. To Leon she yelled, "This isn't good, McNichol! My Webley's not cutting it! I'm gonna have to go through the back seat and try for the shit in the trunk! But you're gonna have to keep them off our ass until I can get a hold of it!"

Leon grunted and said, "Well, shit! Hurry up then, Ami! I can't dodge a whole hell of a lot in this thing, especially not with her hitching a ride on the damn windshield!"

As if hearing him, Nene stirred, mostly healed now, and forced herself up to a kneeling position on the hood, much to Leon's disbelief. Gripping the door frame on Ami's side, she reached into her long coat with her other hand and drew out the hand-canon. Tucking it under her arm, she reached back inside and came out with one of the large pistol grenades that had dealt so effectively with Moe. Releasing her hold momentarily, she snapped it to the modified muzzle and, grabbing hold again, quickly sighted over the roof and fired. The miniature RPG whooshed away and caught the pursuing cyberdroid squarely in the chest.

There was a titanic explosion, and Nene saw the shining female figure thrown back by the blast. Off balance, her foot made contact with the pavement, and she was immediately yanked forward into an uncontrolled tumble, rapidly dwindling behind. Still, Nene was almost certain that she hadn't really been damaged much, just shaken up. But at least it didn't seem that she'd be picking up the pursuit right away.

"Jesus Christ!" Leon exclaimed from the driver's seat as he watched in the rear-view mirror. Trying like hell not to keep the car on a straight enough course to make a good target while at the same time pushing for all the speed he could get out of it, he glanced at the mirror again. He saw the female roll to a stop and slowly climb to her knees far behind, but he also saw the male rocket on past, mouth gaping, an all too familiar glow building there. "Oh, shit," he said, knowing what was coming.

The mouth-laser blast missed it's intended target, the back of Leon's head, only because he jerked the wheel sharply to the right at the last second, nearly flinging Nene from her precarious perch. The blast instead passed between the driver's and passenger's seats, and though over ninety-nine percent of the laser's energy passed through the glass unhindered, the less than one percent absorbed was more than enough to cause catastrophic thermal expansion. Both the rear window and the windshield shattered explosively, raining glass all over Leon and Ami in the back seat. The crow squawked in indignation from where it was huddled on the floorboard, and Ami, head and torso shoved into the trunk, gave a muffled yell. "Son of a bitch, Leon!"

"Bitch at the damn boomer, Takashi, not me!" Leon yelled over his shoulder, trying to figure some way to squeeze just a little more out of the unmarked. On the hood, Nene was clutching her right thigh, which had been seared by the boomer's shot. As Leon watched curiously, he saw the blackened, smoking third degree burn lighten and heal over like a time-lapse movie. "Je-sus Christ," he whispered, shaking his head slowly. He knew that most combat-rated models were capable of healing that rapid, but he'd never heard of an android that could do anything like that. 'Somehow, we're gonna get through this shit,' Leon thought, and then, 'Just so I can find out what the hell's really going on here.'

From the back, Ami's muffled voice came to him again. "Pop the damn trunk, Leon!"

Frowning, Leon said, "Say what?"

Irritated, Takashi yelled, louder, "I said open the damn trunk McNichol! Now!"

Leon rolled his eyes and, as he hit the trunk release muttered, "Oh hell, here we go."

The trunk lid popped up just slightly as the latch released, held down by the pressure of the wind passing over it. From inside, a large bore muzzle suddenly poked it's way out, resting solidly on the trunk's edge. From behind it, there was the actinic glow of a low powered active laser sighting device, visible only because of the darkness around it. With a muttered, "Eat this, asshole," Ami fired the Stomach rail gun, sighting directly at the male boomer's gaping mouth and the oral cavity laser lens there.

The boomer tried to dodge, but too late. The hypersonic round struck it dead-on in the mouth, shattering the comparatively delicate lens and causing a fair amount of collateral damage as well. With a reverberating roar of pain, the boomer fell back, hands clasped to it's face as it touched down. Not one to leave things to chance, Ami fired another round, and then the third and last. She scored two more hits, one to the torso and one to the right thigh. The boomer staggered back with both impacts, but didn't fall. Ami whistled in consternation, and, reloading as quickly as possible, muttered, "Son of a bitch, these things are tough!"

By the time Ami had jammed three more rounds into the Stomach, both boomers were dwindling out of sight behind, and, curiously, didn't seem inclined to follow further. Seeing this, Ami squirmed backwards, the Stomach still in her hands, and popped out into the back seat, throwing it up onto the window ledge. Over her shoulder she said, "Well, looks like we're clear for now, McNichol. Where the hell are we going?"

Before Leon could answer, Nene flopped inside through the shattered windshield and, landing in the passenger seat said in a tone of exhaustion, "Raven's. We need to go back to Raven's Garage. It's the only place that has what I'm going to need."

Frowning, and glancing suspiciously at her, Leon said, "Is that so. Two questions, then. First, what the hell was all that shit just about? And second, who or what the hell are you really?"

Irritated and still in some pain, Nene looked over at Leon and said, "Well who the hell do I look like, Leon? The tooth fairy?"

Leon's frown deepened, and in a dangerous voice he said, "That's not what I asked. I know who you look like, but that doesn't mean much nowadays, does it?" Hand darting into his jacket, he whipped out his Earth Shaker and, aiming directly between Nene's eyes, cocked the hammer back. "Last time," he said slowly. "Who are you?"

Nene sighed and slumped back into the seat, tears suddenly stinging her eyes. Looking back at Leon miserably, in a tight voice she said, "Believe whatever you want to, Leon. Hell, it's probably better if you don't believe any of this crap. It'll make things easier later. If there is a later."

"What the hell do you mean by that?" Leon said bemusedly.

"What I mean," Nene said tiredly, "is that The Tin Man isn't who I thought he was. Or what."

From the back seat, Ami piped up with a surprised, "Say what?"

Nene shook her head and said, "He's not who he used to be. He's, well, merged with somebody else. Somebody who's rebuilt his whole body and mind. He's a monster now. More so than he was before."

"Ok," Leon said slowly, "I'm really getting sick of saying this, so spill it all at once. What the hell are you talking about?"

"Largo, Leon!" She yelled, angry tears flowing now. "Largo! That's what I'm talking about! He didn't die that day when you shot him and knocked him off the tower! His body was destroyed, but his mind wasn't! He made it into the Net somehow, and then he came back! He's the one who set us up, who had us killed! And it's as much my fault as it is his."

Truly perplexed now, Leon said, "Ok, let me get this straight. So you're saying that The Tin Man is really Largo, or some kind of mix of Largo and Fukabayashi, that he set up the Sabers' murder, and that you, or Nene at least, had something to do with it? Jesus Christ. This is giving me a damn headache."

"Headache or no, Leon, it's true," Nene said. And in a small voice, sniffling now, she said, "You remember all those little fights we had with Miriam's boomers right before he took over the station?"

Leon nodded, and said, "Yeah. And?"

"And you remember how the chief's niece, Lisa, was following us around, taking pictures and trying to expose our identities?"

"Yeah," Leon said with a curious note in his voice.

Nene nodded, and said, "Well, she got one good one. One of those boomers broke my visor, and Lisa got a shot of my face. Not a great shot, but enough to get her really wound up. That's why she was acting so weird there at the end, asking everybody all kinds of funny questions."

Leon nodded slowly, looking at Nene oddly.

"Well, when she downloaded that photo from her camera, I guess Largo, or some part of him, saw it. Her computer was hooked up to the Net, and that was all it took."

"So how does that add up to it being your fault he killed the Sabers?" Leon asked in puzzlement.

"Don't you see?" Nene said, tears flowing freely now. "If I'd been more careful, or if I'd just bothered to keep myself in better damn shape, Lisa would've never gotten that picture! And Largo said that even though he had two of our identities already, he wouldn't have moved without a third." Looking down at the floor, still sniffling, Nene said in a broken tone, "So you see? It was my fault. If it wasn't for me, they might still be alive."

Frowning again, Leon said, "Ok, reality check here. First, if this guy is Largo, why the hell are you believing a damn thing he says? From what little I remember about him, he seemed like the kind of guy who'd tell you whatever he thought would hurt the most. And second, what makes you think that even if he hadn't moved when he did, that he wouldn't have eventually? If he's as high and mighty as you say, it would've only been a matter of time now wouldn't it?"

Still sniffling, Nene drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around them, hugging herself. Finally, in a small voice, she said, "I guess so. Maybe."

Leon nodded emphatically, and said, "Well, there you have it. He psyched you out, and you fell for it. End of story, Nene."

"Nene?" Ami said in a strange voice from behind. "I thought you said you'd never believe that one, McNichol."

Leon was silent for a long moment, eyes unreadable behind his mirrored shades, and then finally he said, "Son of a bitch. It is you, isn't it, Nene?"

With a wan smile, she looked back at Leon and said, "Yeah, it's me. Don't ask me how, though. I already went through that one with Mackie, and I haven't got a clue."

Again Leon was silent for several seconds, and then he said, "Ok, then. So what now?"

Nene sighed, and said, "Like I said before, we need to go back to Raven's. Mackie should have _It_ ready by now, and I only pray that'll be enough for me to be able to take him on."

Incredulous, Ami said, "Take him on? You plan on going back there after getting your ass handed to you like that?"

"It's not like I have much choice," Nene said quietly. "For a couple of reasons. First, he's the last one. The last bastard who owes me and the others. He's the only reason I'm here, now. Second, whatever he did to us, he has to be stopped. What he's planning is crazy."

"Planning?" Leon said. "Shit, this just gets better and better. What's the bastard got in mind?"

Nene just shook her head, and said, "Imagine the worst thing you can possibly think of. Now make it ten times worse."

As she said this, the crow emerged from it's hiding place and fluttered to her shoulder, squawking it's agreement loudly.

Back at Raven's, down in the concrete corridors beneath, Nene finished retelling to all assembled what Largo had told her. All were silent for a moment, absorbing the fantastic story, and then Leon said, "So the son of a bitch plans to just absorb the whole damn planet? Is that what you're saying?"

Nene shook her head, and said, "I don't really know, Leon. He kept talking in metaphors and stuff like that. But that's what it sounded like. First he plans to take over the whole Net, and then everything else. And if he can do what he did to The Tin Man, just taking him over from the inside and remaking him like that, I don't see why he can't do the same thing on a bigger scale. It might take a while, but I got the impression that he's not really worried about time anymore."

Ami shook her head, and said, "Hell, who knows. There are boomers out there that are able to fuse with a hell of a lot of material. But to do what he did to Fukabayashi! That'd mean he'd have to be able to rework flesh too. There wasn't really very much of that left in him, but there was some."

Mackie whistled softly, and said, "Organic fusion. That's bad. Real bad. It's been the holy grail and the ultimate taboo in cyberdroid research for a lot of years now. I'd heard there were a few people working on it, but the only one who was even close was a guy named Hawthorne back in the States. He worked with my dad years ago, and knows more about boomers than just about anybody except maybe Dr. Haynes. He worked with Dad too."

After a slight pause, Mackie continued. "Anyway, from what I heard, something went really wrong with Dr. Hawthorne's experiments, and they had to shut the whole thing down. I don't know if what Largo did is based on that, or if he came up with it on his own somehow, but either way it's not good. If he can do that kind of thing, it wouldn't be impossible for him to do something really wild. Like eventually fusing Earth's entire biomass and all the man made stuff together into one big, planet-sized blob of cyber-goo. Sounds like that's what he's after."

Leon shook his head disbelievingly and said, "Well, Nene, you hit the nail on the head before. Crazy is the only way to describe shit like that. So how the hell do we stop him?"

Nene sighed, and said, "_We_ don't. _I_ do."

"Christ's sake, Nene!" Leon exclaimed. "I hate to point this out, but the last time you tried that, he sent you on a ten story swan dive into my friggin' windshield! You plan on going back for seconds?"

"That only happened because I didn't know what I was dealing with," Nene said matter-of-factly. "If I had, I never would have gone there unprepared."

Leon snorted, and said, "Unprepared? How the hell do you prepare for a bastard like that? Hit the place with a damn particle beam strike?"

"I wish," Nene said. And then, leading the way into Mackie's main workshop, she said, "But in lieu of that, this will just have to do."

In front of them, standing upright in a transparent storage canister, was a hardsuit. But it was a hardsuit unlike any they'd seen before. It was jet black from head to toe, and had a slight textural burnishing that almost suggested feathers. The helmet was slightly oblong in shape, and tapered a bit in front, hinting at the outline of a bird's head and pointed beak. Behind, it sported a set of oversized flight verniers, folded now into backpack configuration. Just visible between them was a tightly folded membrane of some sort that, if extended out, might very well have given the impression of a set of great, raven-black wings.

"Damn." Leon said appreciatively. "That's one mean-looking piece of hardware."

"And armed to the teeth too, looks like," Takashi added.

Nene nodded slowly, and said, "You can't see the ribbon-cutters or 'Kotetu', the other laser-edged sword right now. They're retracted. But the knuckle bombers, the laser canon, the leg bombers, the s-mine rack and the knuckle-guard system are all pretty plain to see. And of course all my old computer gear, plus a few extras, is still built in."

Leon gave a low whistle, and said, "Christ! It's a damn Swiss-Army suit. If you could cram all that shit into one suit, why didn't you ever do it before?"

Mackie shook his head, and said, "This thing is a nightmare. It's a power-hog for starts. I doubt the damn fuel cells will keep it running for more than a couple of hours, especially with the way I upgraded the musculature. And it's soft-skinned as hell. If I hadn't cut the armor way down, it'd maneuver like a pregnant yak, and, for Nene at least, being able to move is a lot more important than being able to soak a hit. Overall, it's a shitty design for anything other than the one thing it was intended for."

"It's a suicide suit," Ami said flatly. "It's only designed for one big fight, and it doesn't leave much provision for the wearer walking away afterwards. It's strictly a 'go out in a blaze of glory' weapon. That about it?"

Nene nodded, and said, "Yeah, that's about it. When we started working on it last night, I knew we wouldn't have enough time for anything better. Plus, I figured that if I ended up needing this, I wouldn't be worried about much else afterwards. I guess I was right."

"Still," Leon said slowly, "That's a lot of firepower. You sure you know how to operate all that shit, Nene? You were the support Saber, after all, not one of the front-line hitters."

Nene grunted softly, and said, "I'm sure, Leon. It's as if everything I ever saw or learned about fighting just came together in a rush inside of me after I came back. I don't think there's a weapon I can't use now. And… it's funny, but when I look at that suit, all pieced together from parts of the other Saber's suits, I almost feel…"

"Feel what, Nene?" Mackie said, concerned.

"I almost feel that there's some part of them in each part of that suit," she said in a small, strange voice. "As if they're still here with me in a way, waiting to guide me when the time comes."

All three of the others felt a momentary chill run down their spines at these words, though none of them would have admitted it.

Breaking the strangeness, Leon said, "Well, that's great for you. So what about the rest of us?"

Nene frowned, and said, "The rest of you? Leon, the rest of you need to stay out of this. This is my fight, not yours."

"Ah, bullshit." Leon said dismissively. "Largo might be your fight, but those two buffed-out boomers of his are another story. You need somebody to keep them the hell off you while you deal with him at the very least. And I don't plan on becoming part of some planet-sized ball of cyber-shit without a fight."

Ami shook her head and said, "Me either. And we've come this far. We might as well go the rest of the way."

Nene shook her head, and, smiling resignedly, said, "You're both certifiable. You know that?"

In a low voice, Mackie said, "Well , I guess you can include me in that too, then. There's no way I'll stay here while you're going out there to fight him."

Nene sighed, and said, "You know, when this all started, I thought I'd just be going it on my own."

Mackie laughed, and said, "Like I told you before, Nene. What else are friends for?"


	11. Chapter 11

_Chapter 11 up, just one more to go! Things really heat up from here, so drop me a line to let me know what you think!_

As they rumbled down the ruined streets in the oversized tractor-trailer rig that had served the Knight Sabers as a mobile command center, they made their final preparations and pre-combat checks. From the driver's seat, Mackie conversed with the others inside the trailer section through the vehicle's integrated com system.

"About two minutes to objective rally point. You guys about ready back there?"

"Yeah, we're getting it together," Leon said, dogging down the helmet section of the heavy, borrowed battle suit he wore. "Huh! You weren't kidding when you said this thing was an antique, were you?"

Mackie chuckled, and said, "Yeah, well, nobody ever really intended for it to go into front line combat. It's just something I cobbled together and rebuilt so I'd be able to do more forward support. But at least I was able to replace that old recoilless rifle with a rail-action rig. Should pack a hell of a lot more punch, but make damn sure you're braced good before you use it. Recoil compensators can only do so much."

"Huh!" Leon said, "Glad you waited until now to tell me that. Any other surprises?"

"Not really," Mackie said. "Just don't expect too much out of it. Hell, it's just a lucky break that you senior ADP guys carry your biometric data around on a data stick. If not, we wouldn't have had time to do all the necessary measurements and calibrations. As is, I only hope the conversion program I used got all that crap right."

"It should be ok," Takashi said. "All tactical commanders and above carry that data around with them. Never know when you might have to jump into a k-suit, after all, and it's never the same one twice. This system works just fine with them."

"Yeah, well these aren't exactly k-suits we're wearing," Leon said, and then added, "Yours is kind of stylish, though."

"Well, shit," Ami said caustically, looking down at the garish blue and pink painted armor she wore. "It was the only damn thing there that fit! It's not my fault that all the Sabers except Nene were freakishly tall."

Leon snickered, and Mackie said, "You were just lucky there was anything left at all. I'd pretty much torn down all the other suits, old and new, for parts. There just wasn't anything on Nene's old suit that I really needed."

Rolling her eyes, Ami said, "Oh, great. Not only is it a hand-me-down, it's a hand-me-down that nobody else wanted. That's reassuring."

"It's better than hanging your ass out in the breeze without it." Leon said, and added slyly, "Besides, watching you board it was kind of interesting. Made me see you in a whole new light, if you know what I mean."

Ami shook her head slowly, and said, "Huh! Didn't think you'd notice, McNichol. I thought you were too busy with Wong for that kind of shit. But you can sure as hell tell these interface suits were designed by a lingerie store owner."

Their banter was interrupted by Mackie as he called, "Thirty seconds! You guys better get ready to go!"

Looking to Ami, not that she could tell through the suit, Leon said, "You ready?"

She nodded, slapping a mag of 'Scary Larry's Finest' into the anti-boomer heavy rifle she'd brought along and checking the old .357 in it's shoulder holster that she'd refused to leave behind. Finally, she said, "Yeah, about as ready as I'm likely to be."

"Ok," Leon said. "And how about you, Nene?"

Up on the roof of the trailer section, riding it like a surf board, the dark, brooding figure that was The Black Saber said, "Let's do it."

The Tin Man had descended from the heights, and now sat, in his sanctum, in the basement of the Hong building. He could feel the changes in him coming to a fever pitch, and knew that it wouldn't be long now. Already, he could perceive the geometries of some higher dimension dimly, but only as a sort of golden glow at the periphery of his new senses. Soon, though, he knew that it would all come clear to him, and when that occurred he'd be re-born yet again. And the world along with him.

Still, he reflected, it hadn't come to pass yet. And there were those who sought to thwart him in his aims.

As he slowly let his consciousness creep outward into the building around him, affecting it's physicality as it spread, he called out silently to his two most trusted servants, the two arch-angels he'd crafted to help him usher in the new era. After all, what was a god without angels?

'Samael. Lilith. I believe our guests are returning. Greet them for me if you will.'

"Go!" Leon yelled, leaping from the open side of the trailer as it ground to a halt. Before he hit the ground, he activated the suit's jets, setting them on ground-effect mode, and skimmed away toward the objective. He was glad he'd remembered how, considering the heavily abbreviated class he and Ami had received before moving out. He just hoped he'd be able to remember how to stop once he got there.

From the other side, Ami sprang out, hitting the hardsuit's jump jets immediately and heading for high ground. Per their hastily improvised plan, to start with at least, she'd be their recon and sniper support. Though she was fairly certain Nene had other means of intelligence gathering available to her.

For her part, The Black Saber spread her wings and ascended on a column of blue-white fire. Reaching altitude and cruising speed, she cut out the afterburners and leaned into a jet-assisted glide. Avionics programs, borrowed from Sylia's old suit, came to life, projecting virtual instruments onto her helmet's HUD. But she barely needed them, hardly paid them any attention. Somehow, some part of her seemed very comfortable with flying, and she maneuvered instinctively. Ahead of her, the crow flew as well, all that it's eyes and ears perceived playing across her mind's eye.

Ami went for broke, finding a narrow ledge high up, near the rim of the Canyon wall. From there, nearly fifty meters up, she had an overview of the entire target area. Cursing briefly, she finally remembered the correct sub-vocal commands, and activated the HUD's zoom and targeting functions. Narrowing in on the Hong building, she scanned in multi-spectral mode from the top down, having remembered how to do that as well, finding the suit's sensor suite impressive to say the least. She gave a low whistle at what she saw.

"Hey, guys! Heads up!" She said into the suit's com, connected to the others by secure tactical LAN.

"What've you got?" Mackie said.

Ami frowned, and said, "I'm not sure. Shit! If I could remember how, I'd pipe the video over to you."

"Uh, don't worry about it." Mackie replied. "I can do it from here." There was a pause, and then a small green telltale came on in the lower left of the HUD. "Huh!" Mackie said then. "I don't know what the hell to make of that either. Nene?"

Concern evident in her tone, Nene said, "Not good, guys. Thermal and electromagnetic profiles are changing, building wide. Reflective profiles all over the spectrum too."

"Ok," Leon said in exasperation. "So what the hell does all that mean?"

"It means that the entire structure of building is changing," Nene said. "How, or into what, I don't know. But some of those readings look an awful lot like the ones I got that night at Aqua City. You remember that, don't you?"

"Ah, shit," Leon resignedly, "It figures."

"Company!" Ami said suddenly. "The two shiny bastards from earlier. Huh! They're just standing there at the door, like they're waiting for somebody. I guess the element of surprise is shot to hell."

"It figures," Nene said.

"I've got eyes on!" Leon yelled as he came into visual range of the two advanced cyberdroids. "You got the shot or what, Ami?"

Up on her precarious perch, Ami smiled inside her suit, and using the HUD's superior targeting system rather than her cybereye's, she lined up and slowly squeezed the trigger. "Oh, yeah, I got it," she said lazily.

They heard the thunderous report of the greatly over-charged cartridge through the com system before the actual sound reached them below. But the effects were immediate and devastating.

The round, traveling at muzzle velocities never intended even for a sniper rifle, slammed into the female boomer's head. The depleted uranium penetrator first stage ripped through the boomer's adamantine armor, clearing the way for the explosive second stage to detonate inside the comparatively delicate tissues within.

The female model was smashed to the ground by the impact and the ensuing explosion, and a significant chunk of her head disappeared in a flash of yellow and scarlet. Despite this, she immediately pushed herself up to her knees, trying to rise.

Seeing that she wasn't out of the fight, Ami fired another round, scoring another hit in almost exactly the same spot. This time, the boomer's head disintegrated entirely, and she pitched back to the pavement, convulsing wildly. Unfortunately, Ami had overstayed her welcome; there was a reason for the old sniper motto of 'One shot, one kill.'

The male model, tracing the bullets' trajectory, spun around and swept a hand in Ami's direction. A gravitational shockwave expanded out toward her, distorting the air between them. Ami had just enough time for a sarcastic "Ah, shit," before it struck.

"Takashi!" Leon yelled as he saw the rock face where she'd been shatter and rain down on the ruined buildings below it.

Focusing on the perpetrator, who pivoted to face Leon as he skimmed toward him, Leon gunned the flight jets and yelled, "You son of a bitch!" as he slammed into the boomer at over a hundred kph.

The impact was jarring even through the heavy battle suit, and though Leon suspected that the supped-up boomer was far stronger than the suit's ancient servos, sheer mass and momentum were on his side. The boomer was knocked off it's feet, and Leon carried it back into the building like a nose-guard breaking through to sack the quarterback. Not that it seemed very impressed.

As they slammed into the concrete wall, shattering a large section of it, the boomer struck back with a swift kick to the battle suit's mid-section. Leon was thrown back, and landed on his back, skidding to a halt. The suit's armor had held, but just barely, and Leon could feel the fresh bruises on his ribs.

"Well, shit!" He exclaimed, "I can see where this is going!"

Just then, the boomer roared in indignation as it's face was seared by a high-powered laser pulse from above. Looking up, it saw, black upon the black backdrop of night, the silhouette of a great dark bird.

"Ah, hell, Romanova!" Leon yelled. "Don't waste your time with this thing! Get the hell in there and nail Largo's ass! I'll be fine!"

Wordlessly, she heeded Leon's advice, realizing that time was short. If she stayed to help Leon, they might very well end up with something far worse than an over-powered boomer to deal with.

The boomer swiveled to track as she dove past and into the building's shattered and gutted lobby, the burnt out Cadillac still sitting in the center like a grotesque modern art sculpture. But as it's jaws gaped and the high-output mouth laser, apparently healed since it's run-in with a rail-gun round, prepared to fire, Leon took action.

Swinging the massive barrel of the rail-action canon around, Leon stepped back with his right leg, bracing himself, and fired. The thirty-centimeter spike of tungsten and depleted uranium screamed from the weapon's muzzle at meteoric speeds and ripped into the boomer's shoulder before it could fire. The round first liquefied and then became an expanding ball of incandescent plasma as the kinetic energy of it's impact was converted to heat. The secondary explosion from this along with the impact itself spun the boomer around and knocked it from it's feet. From where he stood, Leon could see that the boomer's left arm hung by a thread, nearly torn from it's body by the blast. But that didn't seem to deter it as it rose up again to fight.

Shaking his head, Leon said, "Just don't know when to quit, do you?"

The boomer's only reply was to extend it's good hand with a metallic roar and send a wave of tortured space-time in Leon's direction. He tried to dodge, but between the less-than-perfect calibrations, the overall clunkiness of the suit, and Leon's relative inexperience with it, he just wasn't able to move in time.

The gravitational distortion struck him dead center in the chest, like an oaken club swung by a giant. Leon heard and felt the battle suit's heavy chest plating crack and give, and was hit by a scarlet wave of agony as his ribs followed suit. The battle suit flew back under the impact, slamming into an adjacent building hard enough to smash Leon almost into unconsciousness. In front of him, the suit's HUD flickered and dimmed, and for a moment Leon wasn't sure if it was the electronics or his own vision that was failing.

"Shit, that brings back memories," he muttered weakly around a mouthful of blood, thinking of his fight with the D.D. Battlemover in the Kanto Dump a lifetime or two ago. "Hope this one doesn't turn out so one-sided."

But as his vision and the HUD cleared, he saw the boomer, standing again now, warming up it's mouth laser for what he knew would be a finishing shot. Of course he refused to just give up, and did his best to bring the gauss canon back to bear, but the suit's systems responded only sluggishly. There was no way he'd get the shot off in time.

Just as Leon knew the boomer was about to fire, there was a sharp crack off to it's left, and the high-pitched whine of a round ricocheting from it's armored hide. Momentarily distracted, the boomer turned it's head toward the source of the annoyance.

Leaning against a broken wall for support, battered, bleeding and clad only in her tattered and blood-stained inner-wear soft suit, Ami stood, Jeena Malso's old .357 smoking in her hand. "Hey, asshole!" She yelled mockingly. "You forget about me?"

With a growl, the boomer prepared to unleash it's pent-up mouth laser blast on this minor irritation, but Leon had other ideas. Ami had bought him just enough time to force the unresponsive gauss gun on target and fire.

Again the hypervelocity round shot out, this time scoring a hit center mass on the boomer's torso. Once more the impact and secondary explosion drove the boomer back, a gaping, fist-sized hole driven through it. After skidding to a halt on it's back on the pavement, the boomer rolled weakly to it's front and tried to force itself up to it's knees, but Leon was having none of that. As soon as the gun's capacitor cycled back up, he fired again, converting the boomer's skull into incandescent fragments that peppered the walls around them.

As the boomer finally sagged, lifeless at last, to the pavement, Leon sagged as well. Through a red veil of pain, he saw Takashi limp toward him, her stocking feet cut and bleeding from her passage over the debris-strewn streets.

As she reached him, Leon heard her distantly over the roaring and pounding in his head. "You still alive in there, McNichol?" In answer, he gave her a weak thumbs-up with one of the sluggish manipulators, and managed to hit the tongue switch that popped the helmet section loose.

"Shit, Takashi, you're a mess." He said wryly. "For a minute, I thought that bastard managed to take you out."

She shook her head and, leaning on the prone battle suit for support, carefully lowered herself to sit beside Leon. "Huh! You know my luck," she replied in the same tone. "It'll take more than a couple of super boomers to nail either of us." And then, suddenly coughing up a mouthful of blood, she added weakly, "But not much more."

Frowning, Leon said, "You gonna make it, Takashi?"

Smiling raggedly, she said, "I could ask you the same. Tell you what. I'll make you a deal, McNichol. First one of us who dies owes the other one a six-pack. Ok?"

Leon snorted, grimacing at the pain this sparked, and said, "Deal." And then, abruptly changing the topic, he said, "So I guess there was a reason to hang onto that damn .357 after all."

Glancing down at the revolver held limply in her lap, Ami said, "Yeah. Just one more thing I owe Jeena for, I guess."

And then both of them were silent, conserving their strength and hoping that their efforts hadn't been in vain.

Inside the Hong building, things were rapidly becoming very strange. As Nene strode past the elevators, certainly not trustworthy at this point, toward the stairs, she noticed a number of oddities. The floor seemed soft, spongy somehow, almost as though it were coated in rubber, and the walls seemed to flex or crawl in her peripheral vision. And, far more disturbing, there were the corpses.

No one had bothered to clean up after her earlier visit, it seemed, and the bodies of the Triad enforcers lay where they'd fallen. Or nearly so. As she passed them by, she was vaguely horrified to see that all of them seemed almost to be dissolving, slowly spreading out over the floor to form the spongy layer she'd already noticed. And then one of the 'corpses' had reached out to snag her leg.

Nene gasped in shock, and looking down, recognized one of those whom she'd only wounded, now half-absorbed by the ravenous building like the others. "Help me," he whispered piteously. Nene shuddered, and yanked her ankle free. "Help me," he repeated, more insistent this time.

Nene shook her head, and, sighting in, fired a pulse of laser energy into the miserable creature, ending his suffering. "I'm afraid that's the best I can do," she said regretfully. And then, angrily, she kicked open the stairwell door. The crow, perched on her shoulder until now, hopped off and flew downward, toward the basement, alighting on the rail at the next landing. Looking up at her, it cawed loudly.

"Down there, huh?" She said resignedly. "It figures. Where else would you find a monster but in a dungeon?"

Sighing, she descended the stairs, the crow hopping back to her shoulder as she passed.

Outside, Mackie brought the tractor-trailer rig rolling to a stop in front of the building. After losing contact with everyone, including Nene once she'd entered the building, he figured he had little to loose by bringing the rig in.

Seeing the two figures huddled together next to an adjacent building, unable to tell at a glance if they were alive or dead, he jumped from the cab with a muttered, "Oh, shit."

Takashi raised her head as Mackie rushed up, confirming that at least one of them had made it, and then Leon stirred as well.

"Christ!" Mackie exclaimed, "What the hell happened? The damn LAN fell apart right in the middle of everything!"

Leon coughed weakly, and said, "Take a look around, kid. What the hell does it look like happened?"

Mackie nodded, and said, "Yeah, I can see you took care of Largo's little helpers. Where's Nene?"

"Inside," Takashi said. "Or at least that's what Leon told me."

Leon nodded, and said, "Yeah, she flew in there a few minutes ago. Hell only knows what's going on now."

Mackie shook his head, and said, "Somebody needs to find out what's happening in there. She could be in trouble."

Ami snorted, regretting it immediately, and said, "Shit, Stingray, I'd have to say we're all in trouble right now. She's the best equipped to handle whatever the hell's in there, and the rest of us are in no shape to back her up at the moment. In fact, we need to get Leon out of this damn suit, and get some first aid started. He's tough, but not as tough as he thinks."

Mackie bit his lip, and, reaching into the appropriate concealed slot on the suit's torso, manipulated the right combination of tiny switches to initiate the suit's emergency release system without triggering the explosive ejection sub-system. With multiple hisses and pops, the suit opened up, allowing Mackie and Takashi, barely able to move herself, but unwilling to rest until Leon was taken care of, to lever him up and out. From there, Mackie helped get the two of them to the trailer, and briefly explained the auto-doc system to Takashi. Then, grabbing Muramasa, the hand-canon, and a couple of pistol grenades from where Nene had dropped them, he turned back toward the Hong building.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Leon said weakly from the trauma station where Takashi was hooking him up.

Shaking his head, Mackie said, "What does it look like, Leon? I'm going in to help Nene."

"You're out of your friggin' mind, Stingray," he said in a tone that told Mackie that if he could have, Leon would've joined him.

"Maybe," he agreed as he trotted away. "But all things considered, that may not be a bad thing right now."


	12. Chapter 12

_Well, this is it, the big finish! Hope this meets up to your expectations and please let me know what you think, both about this chapter and about the story as a whole._

In the Hong building's basement, things had become even stranger. The walls themselves seemed to be in a constant, writhing, state of motion, and Nene had the queasy feeling that the floor was pulsing under her feet. As she walked down the hallway, passing side doors that she somehow knew didn't conceal her quarry, she could've sworn that, just occasionally, she saw faces in the walls. Or at least parts of faces. And not just static sculptures of faces either. The things she glimpsed from the corners of her eyes moved and twisted and writhed like everything else, and sometimes even cried out in mute agony. Nene shuddered in revulsion, and only hoped that the supernatural abilities she possessed would be equal to taking on the monster at the center of all this.

Finally, she came to a last door, the room housing the building's computer core, according to the sign on it. It figured, she thought.

With a final sigh, she kicked out at the metallic door with her hardsuited foot, intending to knock it from it's hinges. But instead, it crumpled under the impact, snapping with a sound like breaking bone and sprayed a reddish fluid that had to be blood all over Nene's armored leg. From somewhere nearby, there was a shriek of pain, almost human but just odd enough to raise the goose-flesh on Nene's hide.

Frowning, she strode into the room and yelled loudly through the suit's voicemitter, "Ok, Largo, enough of this haunted house crap! In case you've forgotten, I've already been dead once. Kinda' takes the edge off of stuff like this, you know?"

On the opposite side of the room, in a deep pool of shadows that remained strangely dark even in her HUD's multi-spectral mode, Nene heard a slow, deep chuckle. Eyes narrowing, she slowly walked toward the sound.

"Gonna come out and play, Largo? Or Tin Man? Or whatever you're calling yourself now? Or are you just going to keep hiding in the dark?"

Again she heard the soft laughter, and then, from all around her, she heard The Tin Man's voice. "Ah, child," he said. "I knew you'd return sooner or later. You really don't have any choice. But you still just don't understand, do you? You still think this is a fight you can win."

"Huh!" Nene said contemptuously. "I think I've got a pretty good shot. Unless you plan on talking me to death, that is. You've bored me half-way there already, and somehow I doubt you're ready to shut up yet."

Once again the laughter came, and then the voice said, "Touché. But allow me to prove you wrong."

With that, the walls practically exploded at her. It was like the night at Aqua City, only ten times worse. There, at least, there had been room to maneuver. In the cramped basement room, there was none. Still, drawing on her new abilities, Nene managed.

As the whipping tentacles and pseudo-pods groped for her, she dodged and twisted, firing laser blasts and extending Kotetu from it's sheathe to hack like a machete at the vine-jungle of horror around her.

She made slow progress across the room, hacking, slashing and blasting as she went. Finally, nearing the shadowed area, she leveled her laser canon and fired. To her dismay, the blast was swallowed up by the blackness to the sound of more laughter. And then The Tin Man emerged.

The blackness, whatever it was, parted around him, and he stood, sickly pulsing tendrils connecting him to the floor. He turned his metallic gaze on her and smiled a thin smile and said, "Better than I'd thought. But now it's time to end this." And he raised his hand in her direction.

Knowing what was coming, she considered dodging, but there was nowhere to go. Tentacles behind, writhing pseudo-pods and groping hands to the left and right, and The Tin Man in front. And so she charged, flight jets engaged.

The blast hit her full on, shattering sacrificial layers of ceramic-composite armor and her rib-cage as well, but the flight verniers' thrust kept her moving forward. Reaching The Tin Man, she lashed out with a savage yell, hitting him squarely in the chest with a knuckle-bomber strike. The shaped charges detonated on impact, knocking him back with a roar of pain. Looking down briefly at his injured chest, The Tin Man speared her with his shaded gaze and said, "Mortality is such a vulgar state, isn't it?"

Thrown by this non-sequiter, Nene said, "Huh?"

And then, back by the doorway, where the crow sat, watching impassively, a single thin pseudo-pod shot out. The crow cawed loudly and tried to launch itself out of the way, but too late. The slim tentacle, sharply barbed at it's tip, skewered the crow as it took off, darting in and pulling back quickly with a tiny gout of blood. Squawking plaintively, the crow fell and rolled out of sight.

Nene felt something fade inside her, and suddenly realized that her half-healed ribs were healing no more. Looking up at The Tin Man in horror, she said simply, "Oh, no."

Grinning ferally now, he struck her, slamming his fist into her already-wounded gut. What little armor was left there shattered, exposing her midriff, and she felt the impact all the way through to her spine. Blood gushed from her mouth as she folded up around his clenched fist and was thrown backwards to be caught by a writhing patch of tentacles.

Desperately holding on to consciousness, she deployed the suit's ribbon-cutters as well as Kotetu, and slashed out in all directions weakly. But it was no use. Faster than she could cut them, the tentacles re-grew, slowly covering her over and smothering her. As she began to go down under them, breath and sight leaving her, she heard his soft laughter once more from across the room.

And then there was a thunderclap and in a burst of bright light and pain, she was free, rolling to a stop against the nearest wall. At the same time, The Tin Man's laughter had turned into a roar of pain, and looking up through a red haze of agony, she saw that the hole she'd made in his chest had been substantially expanded, apparently by a large explosion. Behind her, she heard a familiar voice. "Leave her alone, you bastard!" Mackie yelled.

Pure terror lanced through her then, not for herself, but for him. With the last of her strength, she forced herself up, first to her knees and then to her feet. Her vision, already clouded with scarlet, dimmed as she stood, and she knew that she was dying yet again. But, she told herself, she'd be damned if she'd let Mackie be hurt or killed for her sake.

"Hey! Tin Man!" She yelled raggedly. "It's not over yet! I'm not quite done."

With that, she ran at him, not really able to call it a charge in her present condition, and he simply stood and let her. Drawing back as she neared, she activated the knuckle-guard system borrowed from Priss's suit, and launched a strike aimed at his grinning face. But in her weakened state, she wasn't fast enough, and his hand darted out, catching her wrist in it's grip. Desperately, Kotetu still extended, she stabbed in with the other hand, but again he caught her arm in his grasp. Flexing his metallic fingers, he slowly crushed the armored gauntlets, and would have broken both of Nene's arms as well if she hadn't lashed out with a sudden rocket-assisted kick to his groin.

The impact was spectacular, and the leg-bombers went off on contact. The Tin Man again roared in agony as his pelvic region disintegrated, both his legs flying off in opposite directions. As he fell, broken now but still terrifyingly strong, he took Nene with him. Grappling with her on the floor, he released her wrists, and locked his arms around her torso. She screamed as he slowly increased the pressure, cracking what was left of the hardsuit's breastplate, intending to crush the life from her as he had Priss a year ago.

Bending close to her agonized face, he hissed, "Unlike you, I'll heal. And even if you'd destroyed this body, I would have continued. I am the Net now. And this is over."

But Nene wasn't quite finished. In a strangled whisper, she said, "You're right, Largo. It is!" And, reaching up, she grabbed his face with her now bare hands, thumbs grinding into his eyes. As before, with Razz, she felt a connection forming, and, grinning wolfishly now, she dove inside.

For the Tin Man, it was over in an instant. There was a blindingly bright flash of light inside his mind, and then a shadow rising out of it toward him. As he watched, rooted in horror, the shadow solidified into a great, black, malevolent bird that snatched him up in it's beak as it soared past. And, screaming, it carried him on into an endless, black abyss of night. Eventually, even his screams faded, and there was only silence.

Back in the basement of the Hong building, The Tin Man's face froze in an expression of terror, mouth open in a silent scream. His arms had released Nene, and were held up, fingers curled in, as if to ward of some unknowable horror. As Nene rolled off of him listlessly, smoke began to pour from The Tin Man's mouth, and the tentacled walls began to sag.

"Nene!" Mackie screamed in anguish, skidding to a halt next to her on his knees. Cradling her head on his lap, he said, "Oh, God! Nene! Can you hear me?"

Her eyelids fluttered weakly, and in a wheezing voice, she said, "I hear you, Mackie."

Tears ran from his good eye and spattered her face as he said, "Nene, you've go to get up! We've got to go! This place is coming apart! And I think whatever passes for The Tin Man's heart is about to go up like a Stateside Fourth of July!"

Trying to draw enough breath to speak, Nene said, "Then get the hell out of here, Mackie. I've done what I came here to do. He's gone, Mackie. Not just here, but everywhere. Or he will be soon."

Eye widening in comprehension, Mackie said, "A virus! You hit him with a virus!"

Nene smiled weakly, and said, "Not exactly, but something like that. It'll propagate out through the Net, taking out all the little pieces of him wherever they are." Pausing for breath, she added on a final note, "Like I said. I'm done."

"No!" Mackie said fiercely, pulling her to a sitting position and then forcing her up with a shoulder under her arm. "I won't leave you here! If you're going to die again, it won't be in this stinking hole next to him!"

Nene cried out feebly as her shattered ribs and ruptured organs shifted inside her, but she didn't have the heart to tell Mackie he was killing her even faster by moving her like this. Instead, knowing now that he'd sit here and die with her rather than leave her, she did her best to help him. She hit the hardsuit's emergency release, dropping what was left of it, and supported as much of her own weight as she could, managing to stumble along beside him. As they rounded the doorframe, she spied a familiar black feathered shape, huddled on the floor in a slowly growing pool of blood. The crow, still clinging to life, looked up at her and squawked weakly.

"Hold up," Nene whispered. "One more passenger to pick up."

With that, she bent down, pain lancing all through her as a result, and scooped the crow up in her hand. It came without protest, and just hunkered down against her skin-suit clad breast as they slowly limped out of the building.

Nene found herself drifting in and out of awareness, so she wasn't really sure how long it took to reach the tractor-trailer, but when Mackie tried to talk her into using the auto-doc in the back she just shook her head and said, "We don't have time for this, Mackie. Just help me get into the cab, and let's go."

Protesting loudly, he did as she said, and, sliding over into the driver's seat, started it up and gunned it. As they rumbled away from the Hong building, it seemed almost to melt behind them, slowly folding in on itself and sinking toward the ground. Finally there was an eye-searing flash, and a rolling peal of thunder. Where the Hong building had stood there was only a crater, curiously shaped, if seen from above, in the outline of a great, dark bird.

When they finally arrived at the destination Nene had requested, the night was almost over. The sky had gone from black to that deep purple that presaged dawn, and there was already a hint of brightness on the eastern horizon.

As they rolled to a stop at the gates of the Yokohama Cemetery, a guardian boomer, one of the user-friendly, humaniform models, stepped from it's post to the driver's side of the big rig. As Mackie rolled down the window, it addressed him, saying, "I'm sorry, sir, the cemetery is currently closed. Visiting hours are from sunrise to-"

But, leaning over him, Nene said in a whisper, "Official business. Police officer needs immediate access. Code 3423-74-ADP187."

The guardian-type paused for a second, and then said, "Code accepted. Access granted. May I be of further assistance, officer?"

"No," she wheezed, "Just continue your duties."

"Thank you, officer," it replied. "Have a good evening."

"Huh." She said, smiling weakly. "Yeah, I think maybe I finally will." And then, to Mackie, "Will you help me?"

Tears flowing freely, Mackie said, "You asked me that a couple of nights ago Nene. I said yes then, and I won't let you down now."

Exiting the cab, he helped her drag herself out, noticing how pale and cold she was. As if reading his thoughts, with a slight smile she said, "Shock, that's all. It happens when you've got multiple fractures and massive internal bleeding. But it'll be alright soon."

Mackie shook his head and held back a sniffle.

As he got her to the gate, she said, "I think I can make it the rest of the way on my own, Mackie. You'd better check on Leon and Ami. They've been awfully quiet back there."

He smiled wanly, and said, "Large doses of barbiturates will do that to you. But they'll be fine, I'm sure. They're both too damn mean to die."

She nodded thoughtfully, and said, "Mackie, when this is over, do something for me."

Frowning, he said, "Is this some kind of last request, Nene?"

"In a way," she said slowly. "In a way."

"Well, ok," Mackie said, curious. "What is it?"

Drawing a wheezing breath, she said, "Get a hold of Vision. You know, Reika Chang? Irene's sister?"

Frowning again, Mackie said, "I know who Vision is, Nene. But why do you want me to get a hold of her? What do you want me to tell her?"

"Tell her," Nene said, smiling, "That you need her. Tell her that the Knight Sabers need her."

Bewildered, Mackie said, "Tell her what? Nene, the Knight Sabers don't need anybody now. They're gone."

Nene shook her head slowly, and said, "That's just it, Mackie. We're gone, but Mega Tokyo still needs the Knight Sabers. Can you deny that after tonight? Think about it."

Eye widening in comprehension, Mackie glanced back at the tractor-trailer and then back at Nene, and said, "You mean- me? And those two?"

Nene nodded, and said, "And Vision. Or, if she doesn't want to do it, get Daley. Or find somebody else altogether. But do it, Mackie. For all of us."

He looked at the ground briefly, and then looked up at her again with new determination. "Alright, Nene, I will," he said. "By God, I will."

She smiled again, and said, "I know you will. And now, I've got to go, I'm afraid."

"I know," he said sadly, and then, looking into her eyes, he said, "I love you, Nene. I know I already said that, but I had to say it again. And, even if I find somebody else someday, I'll always love you. No matter what."

Reaching out, she took him in her arms, and said, "I love you too, Mackie. And remember what we talked about before. Death isn't the end. We'll be there. Waiting for you. But don't be in a hurry to join us, ok?"

"Don't worry about that," he said wryly. "It looks like I'm going to be way too damn busy rebuilding the Knight Sabers to take a dirt nap anytime soon. Especially considering what I have to work with."

Letting her arms drop reluctantly, Nene said, "I'm glad to hear that, Mackie." And then, softly, "Goodbye."

With that, she turned, and, limping painfully, the crow cuddled to her breast, made her way out across the graveyard toward something she could only think of now as home.

As Mackie watched her go, tears blurring the vision in his good eye, the sun finally broke over the horizon, dazzling him momentarily. And as he blinked and looked again, he saw that Nene was gone, vanished without a trace.

Following some impulse he didn't really understand, he retraced her steps through the cemetery, coming eventually to the hard, gray slab with her name on it. In direct contradiction to the N-Police report Leon had uncovered, the grave was undisturbed and pristine, looking as it always had.

But on top of the head stone, apparently unhurt now, perched the crow, a shiny piece of metal at it's feet. As he watched curiously, the crow looked up at him, cocked it's head, and bent to peck softly at the metallic thing. Then, cawing loudly, it took to the air, leaving him alone at his lover's grave. Reaching out, he picked up the object of the crow's attention.

He swallowed back tears again as he saw what it was, an AD Police badge, number 718296. Clutching it tightly, he kissed his fingertips and then touched them to the grave stone in front of him, whispering, "I love you, Nene, and I'll never forget you. Goodbye." Turning, he left quickly, knowing that there was much he had yet to do.

**EPILOGUE**

_As she lay her head on the ground, she felt herself slowly drift away, and she smiled as all of the pain receded, leaving her with a warm glow inside. And then she slept._

_She awoke slowly, having no idea how long she'd slumbered, and realized that she wasn't alone. Looking up into a nimbus of light, she saw four silhouetted figures, three female and one male. Smiling broadly, she stood up and moved into their embrace. _

"_You waited for me!" she said joyously._

_Sylia smiled at her and said, "Of course we did. Did you really think we wouldn't?"_

_Beside her, Linna shook her head and said impishly, "Oh, ye of little faith."_

_And Priss, putting a hand on her shoulder said wryly, "You did a damn good job, Nene. Don't think I could've done much better myself."_

_Finally, Dr. Raven stepped up, and said, "Well, ladies, I believe before we were so rudely interrupted, we were having a celebration. I think, all things considered, we have every reason to continue."_

_They all laughed, and Nene said, "Oh, yes Doctor. I think I'd like that very much."_

_**If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them. Buildings burn, people die, but real love is forever.**_

END


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